You win a historic third election with a second massive landslide, getting more than twice as many seats as your nearest challenger – the first time such a thing has ever happened in a Holyrood election – on the back of what’s (self-evidently) by and large a very popular policy programme and record, and before you’ve even taken your seats in the chamber all the parties you just thrashed out of sight line up to explain how you’ve been doing everything wrong.

And as alliances go, they don’t get much less holy.

Last week’s Times came with a whole shopping list of SNP plans the opposition might unite to derail, and the first one looks like being the Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act. Just four years old, the OBFA has been the subject of relentless attacks in the media and from the other parties since its inception.

Right across the press and politics spectrum, barely a voice can be found speaking up in favour of the Act. Except, that is, for the voice of the people.

A YouGov poll last summer, after the Act had been fully operational for more than two years, found that it retained overwhelming support from the public, with over 80% of all respondents backing it and just 12% opposed.

Another poll at around the same time by Panelbase had similar results – excluding Don’t Knows the margin was 81% to 19% in support. The Panelbase poll even broke down respondents by whether they were interested in football and which club they supported, but still found huge majorities in favour right across the board, including more than 2:1 margins from fans of the two clubs particularly targeted by the Act, Celtic and the new “Rangers”.

So the “unworkable” allegation is nonsense, and so is the “unfair” one. In its four years of operation, and despite frequent media hype, nobody has yet identified a single OBFA “martyr” – that is, someone subjected to a life-altering injustice at the hands of the Act – although that fact does nothing to prevent the often hysterical protestations of those on both sides of Scotland’s sectarian divide determined to believe that the legislation is aimed at persecuting them alone.

(Certain elements among Celtic and “Rangers” fans have a bizarre apparent desire to use Scottish football matches not just as a platform for airing their traditional ancient grievances about Irish history, but also to conduct a proxy war between Palestine and Israel, in their endless quest for victimhood status.)

Yet despite the Act’s enormous popularity and serviceable record, the opposition is determined not to offer constructive suggestions to iron out any of its undoubted flaws and wrinkles, but to destroy it utterly.

That they’re choosing to do so at the precise moment that the new “Rangers” enters the Premiership for the first time, bringing the prospect of regular “Old Firm” clashes to the fixture list, is a level of cynical, naked political opportunism that’s breathtaking in its malign and spiteful recklessness.

It’s easy to see the motivation of the Tories. As we’ve been pointing out for several months now, the Ruth Davidson No Surrender To The SNP Party has nailed itself firmly to the mast of old-school 1950s sectarian Unionism, usurping Labour as the main opposition party by openly pandering to a Loyalist and British-nationalist minority that’s never really got over the end of institutionalised religious discrimination.

As for the aforementioned Labour, our best speculation is that having been utterly wiped out in Glasgow at both Westminster and Holyrood elections, holding not a single constituency seat in what was once its impregnable heartland, the party is tossing a grenade over its shoulder as it’s ejected from the premises, determined to leave the SNP inhabiting nothing but scorched earth.

(A more charitable explanation would be that it’s merely blind tribal hatred of the Nats, manifesting as determination to secure any sort of victory over them no matter what the cost to Scotland, as with the Edinburgh trams in 2007.)

The Lib Dems and Greens are rather harder to fathom. The latter’s manifesto pledge to abolish the Act came with no reasoning other than that the OBFA “arbitrarily criminalises football fans”, a definition of the word “arbitrarily” that we don’t recognise – rugby, shinty and curling fans have no history of violent bigotry in need of remedy.

(The Green manifesto also claimed that the answer to the problem was instead to “support community action against sectarianism and other forms of anti-social behaviour in fans’ own clubs through greater empowerment, such as fan ownership”. If that doesn’t stop Neanderthals singing “The Billy Boys” we don’t know what will.)

The Lib Dems offered even less justification, other than including their OBFA-repeal policy at the bottom of a long list of pledges headed “Restoring Liberties”.

It’s incomprehensible to this site that the first priority of the opposition parties and media on the loss of the SNP’s majority is seemingly to send a message to the world that Scotland wants to encourage large groups of people to openly express their bigotry in public again. But it’s even more inexplicable that they’re choosing to do so with proven flashpoints for such toxic behaviour about to reappear on the horizon.

As ever, the price of those “liberties” will be paid by others – not by Ruth Davidson or Kezia Dugdale or Willie Rennie or Patrick Harvie, safe in their middle-class homes far from Ibrox and Parkhead, but by innocent bystanders and abused wives.

(Dugdale thinks it’d also be a smashing idea to bring alcohol back into the equation, if there might be a few quid to be made out of it. What could go wrong?)

But the morality of it all is one thing. We no more expect morality from politicians than we expect gourmet cooking from cats.

What we can’t for the life of us work out is why opposition politicians who’ve just been told to get stuffed by the electorate – James Kelly, the Labour MSP who’s said he’ll bring a repeal bill forward, was rejected by his constituents by a thumping 3,743 votes just days ago – think that the road to recovery lies in ganging up to smash some of the most popular laws ever passed by any government.

The OBFA is just the first step. We could be in for an interesting five years.

“That they’re choosing to do so at the precise moment that the new “Rangers” enters the Premiership for the first time, bringing the prospect of regular “Old Firm” clashes to the fixture list, is a level of political opportunism that’s breathtaking in its malign, spiteful recklessness.”

Well yes, it is. But if there is a sudden surge in sectarianism largely due simply to old firm matches returning, with long suffering Glaswegian non-bigots having had a nice break for a couple of years, and that happens to coincide with all 3 London parties ganging up to abolish the one act against football sectarianism, well…how does that look?

As always, the ability of the Tory-Labour-LibDem alliance to actually think things through beyond ‘this’ll score us a point against the SNP who we despise utterly even if the electorate quite like them’ is non-existent. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t Scotland and people in places like Glasgow who suffer over and over again due to their idiocy.

All MSPs who vote against this thoroughly sensible law should be made to attend the next old-firm match, and spend the first half in the rangers crowd wearing a celtic top, and the second half in the celtic crowd wearing a rangers top (if they survive the first half, that is).

Empires control the population through tactics of divide and rule and sectarianism in Scotland serves that function – keeping two parts of the same society at each other’s throats rather than working together to make things better.

This is precisely what the Unionist parties are up to – they are detecting a dangerous unity developing in Scotland (particularly in Glasgow) and they need to nip that in the bud before people wake up and kick them out altogether.

As for the Greens – not sure but probably just a bit of pathetic muscle flexing to try to humiliate the SNP. Remember that the Greens voted to push the trams through too, purely to discomfort the SNP and with no thought of the financial consequences for the people of Scotland.

I’m sorry but this is a seriously ill-informed piece about the legislation and it’s inner workings as well as the affect it has had on peoples lives. This bill is so bad it has united football fans from Edinburgh to Glasgow, from Perth to Aberdeen against it.

This reads as a complete propaganda piece.

But then again it’s only football fans who’s lives are being ruined for no reason, who cares about them. Not like this attitude has caused any disasters like Hillsbrough or anything is it.

You mention sectarianism three times in this article, that’s three times more than the bill itself does.

This is a terribly written piece of legislation that is the result of knee jerk gesture politics.

It is indeed reprehensible to stir all this up at a time when Rangers are again about to reach the top flight, with some of their fans (please note I say *some* not *all*) believing it to be some sort of ‘revenge mission’ for ‘wrongs’ done to them in the past. I think (justly or not) there is a lot pent-up anger there and I don’t think these politicians are being at all responsible in trying to gain from stoking it.

It’s even worse when you consider that any further electoral gain from pursuing this is likely to be minimal anyway (have the Tories not already won a lot of the UK loyal vote?) so it’s a wrecking tactic designed to play up ‘divisiveness’.

The question of whether and how to re-draft the existing Act is a wholly different matter…..

When Ruth the Mooth brings forward her proposals to repeal the Act I hope Nicola fixes Ruthie with a steely stare and recites slowly and carefully the unedited sectarian abusive chants at her and asks her to confirm that her vision for Scotland is one where foul abuse is to be encouraged. It would be interesting to see if presiding officer Ken McIntosh would allow Nicola to utter the words in the chamber – it would be hilarious if he ordered her to apologise for unparliamentary language and even more hilarious if Nicola were to refuse to withdraw and be suspended from the sitting.

Such a moron sometimes Rev. Existing laws were fine when used this act has been a sham. Now leave football to those who understand it. Given your previous commentary on other football related matters you would think you would leave it well alone.

I always thought the flooding onto the Glasgow streets of hordes of abusive, nazi-saluting Orange Order yobs on 19th September was orchestrated. But I didn’t think any of the mainstream unionist parties were responsible.
Looks like I was wrong. Divide and rule every time. How often will people fall for this?

Scotland has an issue with bigotry. We all agree on that. I’m sure the vast majority would like to see it disappear. I don’t believe this is the correct legislation to achieve it.

Firstly, there is the inconsistency in the fact that a person could sing a song in the street which is not illegal, other than tempting breach, but sing the very same song at a football match it becomes one!

Secondly, handing the police the role of determining what is or isn’t offensive worries me.

If political songs are to be proscribed, then make it explicit and clear!

I think it might be a poorly drafted law….but it’s needed.
Anyone who doubts that need only spend a lonely and soul destroying 90 minutes in the wee ‘away’ corner at Ibrox.
Once you’ve wiped off the bile and spittle you can cherish your memory of all those ‘traditional’ songs.
The other side of Glasgow is little better.

“The latter’s manifesto pledge to abolish the Act came with no reasoning other than that the OBFA “arbitrarily criminalises football fans”, a definition of the word “arbitrarily” that we don’t recognise – rugby, shinty and curling fans have no history of violent bigotry in need of remedy.”

AuldGranny yours is probably accurate and the most scary. If the Unionists can stir up enough sectarian trouble at the football grounds, then ‘Ulsterisation’ will be all they talk about and they will say Scotland will be descending into a place that Westminster will have to step in and ‘take control’ and I wouldn’t put it past them to remove the Scottish Parliament.

“the inconsistency in the fact that a person could sing a song in the street which is not illegal, other than tempting breach, but sing the very same song at a football match it becomes one!”

The “inconstancy” of recognising that one drunken eejit bigot wandering along the street singing a totally offensive song is different to a whole load of drunken eejit bigots singing the same song in a crowd of thousands, many of whom are tanked, a minority of whom will be out looking for a fight, some of whom will be families just trying to have a decent day out? That’s not an inconsistency – that’s recognising where and why there is a specific, major problem.

The OFBA came up on the doorstep quite a lot during the campaign; the chief argument against being that it targeted fans ‘unfairly’ for being fans. In other words – football was being picked on simply because it was the most obvious manifestion of a wider sickeness.

And there’s a smidgeon of truth in that. You might argue that the whole ridiculous ‘marching season’ is just as offensive in its own way – perhaps far more so to people who have no interest in football. But further legislation runs the risk of veering into the draconian – banning marches altogether and so forth.

We’ll only see the disappearance of sectarianism when there’s a change in culture which makes it as unacceptable as overt racism. We can make a start by booting out local councils who depend for support on being far too cosy in their links with ‘tradition’, funny handshakes and all the rest. And without getting into the whole ‘faith schools’ business, we need to do far more to stop sectarianism arising as a consequence of the divide.

Naked unashamed opportunism! What else do we expect from those who wish to divide and rule us rather than run the country for us.

These minority opposition parties are utterly contemptible for trying to play the sectarian card.
Davidson, Dugdail, Harvey and Rennie, get a grip! Listen to the people and stop playing with fireworks.

Rev Stu,
It would be interesting to find out which supporters had been prosecuted under this act?
You cite that either cheek feels victimised by the Act but I just wonder how many of either group has actually been penalised when you consider The Dons/Hearts/Hibs et al.

I would be quite happy to see the Act amended as it is a bit vague on what and what isn’t defined as Sectarian.

IIRC last year, the blue bigots were trying to get every other fan in Scotland prosecuted for calling them Huns – how that translates as being sectarian I have no clue.
You don’t see many Dons’ Fans having a cry for being called Sheep S******g B@st@rds

For certain people this could be deemed as being just as offensive.

Personally, my view is that the Clubs themselves should be held more accountable.
First offence – massive fine
Second offence – closed doors home game for offending team and if the cretins persist – points deduction

kinivie -ban the funny handshake. Agreee but how do you propose this will happen?

You also say “And without getting into the whole ‘faith schools’ business, we need to do far more to stop sectarianism arising as a consequence of the divide.”

Why not get involved?
ALL parties including the SNP are scared of someone getting up in the pulpit saying vote for the other guy.

How radical is this— all children go to school from the same street, they attend the same classes but time out is permitted to ensure religious observance.

It is time for the repeal of the 1918 act and have a Community Schools act.
No more religious discrimination in schools, where you cannot be promoted because you have the wrong faith (or none). All parties are scared of this. Schools are currently being designed and built to segregate children. Shameful.
As for private schools they are NOT charities and should not be treated as such.

It is extremely nasty and worrying. Yoon culture gets ever more creepier, the more they get rejected at the ballot box. We’re plagued by a ghastly tory BBC led media but lets get them out of our councils next year too.

“The OBFA is just the first step. We could be in for an interesting five years.”

Divide and rule has always been the base for keeping control of locals. Now it will be the last ditch attempt of unionism in Scotland. They really have nothing to lose now, they don’t have the popular vote (and is constantly slipping away) so resort to scorched earth policy of sending Scotland back to the dark ages as long as it keeps the union together.

It’s all about ownership, the land, sea and people, losing Scotland would be a seismic event against the Brit-Nat Establishment. It will be akin to a revolution which those in power always fear. The next five years will determine if Scotland will break free and be independent or will forever be owned by others with no interest other than revenue and power.

@ Paula Rose
What about a “Corporate Responsibility” clause. If a commercial organisation allows the law to be broken openly and takes no steps to remedy that, then it is the managers and the directors of that organisation who are responsible.

“No-one mentioned drink, in my scenario of inconsistency. If a law is broken, numbers and state of inebriation should not be mitigating factors or otherwise.”

That’s just utter nonsense. Of course crowds numbers and state of inebriation make a difference – a massive one. You have a huge issue when drink, hatred and large crowds all get together, and that’s precisely why so many families and kids have been unable to attend football matches in the past. It’s not pleasant, it’s not safe, it’s just bloody horrible to have crowds of tanked up people who’s key aim is causing offense and creating violence.

Having a law against singing a song – however offensive and nasty that song is – would be nuts. If a drunk (and lets be honest, these eejit bigots are always drunk when wandering along the street singing offensive songs) individual sings a song, he risks getting his head kicked in by some random bigot of another persuasion. Fine. Who cares? If the police need to intervene at some point, they do. Having a law against singing deliberately offensive songs, designed to create trouble at an event with thousands of people – most of whom are out for a good day and don’t want trouble is a completely different thing. Insist there should be a “right” to go all out to create sectarian trouble at football matches is just beyond bonkers.

“We’ll only see the disappearance of sectarianism when there’s a change in culture which makes it as unacceptable as overt racism.”

Which is the OBFA’s main achievement. Decades of lecturing people about smoking had almost no effect. Making it illegal indoors did more to make it socially unacceptable than a thousand public-information films.

The OBFA has a very limited effect in terms of criminal convictions, but it’s a really important gesture/statement. That’s why the arguments about “existing laws” are such a lot of horseshit. We’ve had most of those laws for a century and they got nowhere.

“Having a law against singing a song – however offensive and nasty that song is – would be nuts. If a drunk (and lets be honest, these eejit bigots are always drunk when wandering along the street singing offensive songs) individual sings a song, he risks getting his head kicked in by some random bigot of another persuasion. Fine. Who cares?”

‘What we can’t for the life of us work out is why opposition parties who’ve just been told to get stuffed by the electorate – James Kelly, the Labour MSP who’s said he’ll bring a repeal bill forward, was rejected by his constituents by 3,743 votes just days ago – think that the road to recovery lies in ganging up to smash some of the most popular laws ever passed by any government.’

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”

I am sure that ‘insanity’ and ‘stupidity’ in that quote could easily be interchangeable.

I am not a great believer in deeming someone stupid just because I do not agree with them, but when it comes to Yoons, they do seem to be mentally wired differently.

Agree Paula Rose and Rab Dickson, dock them at least three points for the first time it happens, six the next time. I’m damned sure it would stop it within a few weeks.

The main problem with that idea is the SFA, who are spineless, useless, and dae precicely SFA.

If, this is the best the opposition can do, amongst all the other things that need tackled in this country, with more of Georgy Porgy’s cut coming doon the line, God help us.

It’s time the opposition grew up. Awe right, you want to repeal this bill. Tell us then, what do you propose to put in it’s place, or do we just sit back and put up with awe the rubbish that goes along wi a gemme o’ fitba for some of these eejits. Come oan the ruth the mooth, whit ideas hae ye goat. We’re a’ waitin.

“This bill is so bad it has united football fans from Edinburgh to Glasgow, from Perth to Aberdeen against it.”

Oh fuck off. The protests at non-Glasgow grounds have been literally two or three people, and even in Glasgow a few dozen at best. The anti groups are laughably tiny, they just shout loudly and get amplified by the media. What’s the biggest EVER protest mounted in opposition to the Act? 50 people? Fewer? Show me pictures.

Sectarianism will only disappear when Gov take positive action to stop it. The only thing that has ever put a stop to Offensive loutish behaviour is the Offensives Football Act. A bad Act but it works.
That is why they are all complainting. .

The thing that will stop sectarianism is church membership falling. Church membership is falling faster than a sieve losses water. Sectsrianism is one of the causes.

Gov should have stepped in long ago. To stop Orange Marches in Glasgow every week. Intergrate
education, etc. These measures should have been taking long ago. Until sectarianism was wiped
out. It is illegal, non equal, unfair on every level, supports criminal behaviour and costs the economy £Millions/Billion. Causes violence and stops investment.

The rejects had better stop they illegal abnoxious behaviour. Trying to muck up the economy and people’s lives.

2017 wipe them out and then sectarianism can be tackled at the roots. Root causes.

Docking points will never happen. The Clubs would be out of business. There is no provision under Scottish Law for ‘collective punishment’.

Make the clubs responsible, progressive fines for repeated transgressions. I see that as the main way to go some way to stopping it. The clubs can then threaten to remove offenders from the club and grounds.

Given the prospect of financial losses, the clubs will HAVE to try and prevent this. It will not stop altogether it is ingrained.
To be banned from the club and it’s games would calm a lot of supporters. Not all as I say, but I see it as the only option.

I wrote, when OBFA hit the statute book: this was bad law, poorly drafted and hurriedly introduced. I still hold this to be the case, but, this cannot alter the fact – some sort of law was needed.
Why was it needed? Because Scottish football had proved incapable of self-policing. Bad behaviour at Scottish football matches, in particular when the Bigot Brothers meet, is nothing new. Although, sectarianism, religious bigotry and Northern Irish political history had nothing to do with the first, and thus-far biggest riot involving the fans of the BBs, they have been rioting and causing unrest since 1909. In the 107 years since, football has never done enough to lance the boil.
It cannot be denied, one side’s “sectarian song” is another side’s “Irish folk song”. a group of people singing a song in a Belfast pub on a Friday night is one thing, 30,000 singing the same song, in a Glasgow football ground the next day is quite another.
The two clubs, and to try to blame one more than the other is to open the can of worms called: “Whitabootery”, know, sectarianism sells, so, they are under no pressure to do anything about it. The SFA ought to have acted lang syne, but, perhaps the two clubs are too-big and too-powerful to be brought to heel by the rest. If they will not act – they should be forced to act. OBFA us an effor at implementing the action the game of football refuses to take.

As a young man I used to go to a pub near Glasgow cross prior to the game. Inside the front door was a sign which read “No colours OR people of Colour”.

I lived in or around the West of Scotland all my adult life and have seen first hand both the “friendly” rivalry and the hateful bigotry as well. It still exists under the pseudonym banter.

I have known people killed for their particular allegiance to a team and have witnessed mass brawls on Shettleston Rd between rival supporters of the Old Firm

The clubs encourage bigotry because it is the basis of their business. The politicians now encourage it because it is the vote base for power. People are used and abused for the end game of others ,and seem happy to comply.

I detest the Cancer of sectarianism in all its forms coming as I do from a religiously divided family. Neither have enough redeeming factors to mitigate for these choices.

“The OBFA might not be the best but it is a step in the right direction”

This is the thing really. I don’t think many of us would be lining up to claim the OBFA is the best legislation in the world. There’s a lot wrong with it. If the opposition were offering constructive suggestions for changing or re-drafting it to make it better, or radically alternative ideas to combat sectarianism, they’d be vaguely useful as an opposition.

A Westminster alliance (aided by the Greens) to simply abolish the one attempt that has been made to address the sectarian issue in Scotland – one that was generations overdue – just makes them look even more pointless, spiteful and dangerous to Scotland than they already did. And that’s saying something.

People who are against this piece of legislation argue that it should be repealed because so few people are charged under this law and a lot of them are found not guilty or the case dismissed Specious arguments.

It is not the purpose of any law to hit some target number of prosecutions. Neither is its purpose to guarantee guilty verdicts every time.
If there are technical issues with the way the legislation is written then they can be addressed without repealing the law.

The very fact that the legislation exists sends a message to people about what society finds acceptable and what it does not.

This whole repeal business is pure political point scoring by the other parties who see it as a way to score an easy ‘victory’ over the SNP and never mind the consequences for the people who will suffer if it is repealed.

The Union is killing us, and the Union doesn’t care. But we care. And we’re not going to go down quietly. No more a hacking cough, Glasgow rings with the death rattle of the Union. We’ve had enough of this crap. Last year we evicted the Labour MPs that have sat on their hands for generations, filling their pockets at our expense. This year we cleared out the MSPs. Next year it’s the council’s turn. We’re going to change this city. We’re going to change Scotland. We’re going to change the world. We’re going to show you a Glasgow effect that is going to ruin the Union’s health, we’ll take back the levers of power and control. And this time it’s not the people of Glasgow who will suffer from a short life expectancy, it’s the United Kingdom whose days are numbered. We’ll show the Union a real Glasgow effect.

Oh wait we just did that, but getting the SNP elected again was not as high on some folks agenda as others so here’s the result and it wont be the last

Every one, yes, every one of these opposition parties will now exercise every little bit of their new found power to screw over the SNP on every piece of business there is so there’ll be plenty of opportunity for those who thought it would be OK to vote another way like the media said because the SNP were going to win really really Ginormously well this is the payback for that

The bitterness of the other parties is only matched by their irrelevance but in order to make themselves relevant they’ll team up every chance they get and they’ll smile nicely for the camera while they do it

There’s a whole raft of legislation to destroy coming up and all four opposition parties will take full advantage so maybe perhaps when the council elections come up folk will have the chance to prove the opposition wrong and vote SNP this time to show them we don’t have short term memory loss

It certainly proves that wee “Rainbow Parliaments” and or Coalitions don’t lead to better or bolder decisions does it when something that was helping tackling sectarianism says NO off you go and
sing once again joyfully about murdering somebody else over something they believe in that never existed in the first place, another lie fabricated by man in order to control other men

Critics of The National will be pleased to hear that it is almost impossible to get one in newsagents, specially W.H.Smith ones. In the rural North East only the Coop keeps a few copies. I have an online subscription so can still access articles.

Both sides of the Old Firm thrive on sectarianism and bigotry hence their initial and continued joint opposition to the legislation.

Recently a “fracas” during Celtics recent title clinching win at Tynecastle resulted in several Celtic fans being detained by Police as they attempted to enter the ground without valid tickets.

They “gloriously”splashed the incident across social media where irate Celtic fans could clearly be heard blaming the SNP,Nicola Sturgeon and Police Scotland for the injustice of it all.(expletives and reference to religion just for good measure).

Seriously In the same week as The Hillsborough verdict it actually beggars belief but that’s what we’re up against.

your missing my point. My point, removing numbers and drink, is about the inconsistency around the fact that I could sing a song which is NOT ILLEGAL – when sung at a football match comes under the determination of a police officer.

Imagine any other activity becoming illegal due to being at an event. Knitting. You can knit all day on your doorstep, but take that knitting to the pictures and you are subject to arrest!

That’s what I have the issue with. Besides, the police don’t tend to arrest people at the games. They film them, gather intelligence and then arrest them with a dawn raid at their homes – like terrorist or drug dealers!

While I would like to see the Offensive Behaviour (football) act amended and strengthened.

However the naked opportunism of the leaders of the Tories, Labour, Libdems and the greens who want to see this act abolished is a sight to behold.

If they do manage to succeed in abolishing the OB act
Then Patrick Harvie, Ruth Davidson, Kezia Dugdale and Wullie Rennie must be held to account if there is any increase in offensive behaviour and domestic abuse resulting from the repeal of the act.

“keeping two parts of the same society at each other’s throats rather than working together to make things better.”

This has been historic policy at all levels in Scotland.

My understanding was that Catholics (Irish immigrants) and Protestants (clearance victims from throughout rural Scotland) were housed in separate areas purposely to foster competition and prevent a united workforce.

Similarly, Catholic schools were set up by local authorities intentionally to separate from an impressionable age. It is often thought that Catholic schools were begun because of pressures of the RC church. Propaganda. Unionist and business dominated local authorities wanted to reinforce the sectarian divide in every way, intentionally.

This divide and rule was part of ‘class warfare’. Now it is still being used for different anti democracy purposes.

Perhaps if the act is repealed the SNP could write to UEFA informing them that they no longer have a means of preventing sectarian behaviour at Scottish football and if alcohol is permitted, the increased risk of violence.

That they could aid UEFA by continued monitoring and reporting of such misdemeanors but any measures or sanctions would have to be their responsibility.

e.g. Crowdless European ties or complete bans from European competition for the clubs involved.

Much like the Named Person service, it’s difficult for me not to get extremely frustrated with people over this.

I’d written about my youth and the role sectarianism had in it on my blog before. As the son of a protestant father & catholic mother, I got hit with both barrels, from both sides. My pals at Scouts making anti-Catholic remarks; my schoolmates making anti-Protestant remarks.

I loved playing sports as a small boy. I enjoyed football for the first few years of primary. But when celebrations are marked by singing songs of violence against your family, even the game itself starts to lose its luster.

I distinctly remember the first time I heard “The Billy Boys.” We were all about 8 or 9. Because I was in all-protestant company, they felt it was fine to sing it, belting out that line. They knew fine well my mother was Catholic, my grandparents and aunt & uncle. They sang it, knowing they were singing about my mother – my family.

And I remember when my school friends talked about “the proddies.” That they had no souls; they didn’t believe in God; they wanted to kill all the Catholics. They knew fine well my father was Protestant, my paternal grandparents, and cousins. They said these horrible things, knowing they were talking about my father – my family.

This never went away. Football was synonymous with sectarianism – with hatred, mistrust, abuse. Any time the abuse came up, I was the target, regardless of which side I was on – for the truth was I was on nobody’s side, because no-one was on my side. And I got sick of it. I was sick of hearing about Bobby Sands. I was sick of the Sash. I was so sick of it, I couldn’t even stand to watch a game of football, much less play it. To this day, I skip the Rev’s Twitter whenever he talks football – because football has been so poisoned to me I just can’t stand it.

So forgive me if I don’t have much sympathy for people whose “liberties” are being “trampled” on because they may face consequences for singing abuse. What about my liberties? What about my right not to be the target of sectarian abuse by my mere existence? Your right to sing about being up to your knees in my ancestor’s blood ends when you find yourself one of thousands thundering a song of hatred – because that’s what it is, no matter what you dress it up as.

And guess what? That applies equally to the other side. Yes, there’s a historic problem with anti-Catholicism in Scotland – but “elevating” Bobby Sands to the Protestant hate anthems is acknowledging that singing a tribute to an Irish martyr central to the sectarian Troubles during a game of football is powerful and emotive in entirely the wrong ways.

I’m sick to death of this “controversy” for something that has overwhelming backing from the people. I’m not being “anti-working class” – my family history is of engineers, electricians, cleaners and soldiers. I’m not being “anti-football” – this is not about the game at all. I’m not being “anti free-speech” – this isn’t “free speech,” it’s abuse. I’m asking for people to recognise that their “liberty,” their “tradition,” their “free speech,” to sing sectarian songs has given me, personally, nothing but pain and misery.

I expected the three yoon parties and the MSM to big up the sectarian vote in Scotland – that is what they have always done – Divide and Conquer.

Not sure what the Greens are up to though on this?

Hopefully, the Greens will see sense and work with the SNP on this and other future policies and not be pulled into an unholy alliance with the yoons.

I do not think it would be a wise move to piss off the SNP so early in the 5 year term. I cannot really see any of the yoon parties joining with them to push through any of their progressive and left wing policies.

Green fact is pretty straight forward. They are going to use James Kelly repeal bill to flex their new Holyrood muscle. Its the UKOK way of the game.

To be fair, it wouldn’t matter to the Greens what this was all about, lets just see how powerful we are and we know that the tory BBC led UKOK media will boost us to UKOK heaven, when we do deliver that massively tasty UKOK blow to Sturgeon.

Or is all of the above just going to make WoS reading Greens go, stop being horrid to us Greens, do as we say and be nice to us, or we’ll even block ref 2. Oh yes we will.

One answer would be to make the club responsible for the conduct of fans.

They can deal with fans when it affects their revenue streams so why not their image?

Rangers tried to placate everybody by signing the odd Catholic here and there. An act which would have received no publicity in any other country in the world,but made front page news here in Scotland, so rare an event it was.

Celtic tried to muzzle the Green Brigade from indulging in their views,but eventually came to a compromise.

Laughably today I hear the Tories are trying to introduce a Bill on extremism and racial and religious extremism which covers even the topic we are discussing,whilst here in Scotland the Tories are trying to ramp it up. Sick world of the Union.

‘Scottish Tory chief whip John Lamont said: “Having prevented the SNP from gaining an overall majority, we can now use the powers of the parliament to scrap some of the bad laws they passed in the last one.

“To do that, opposition parties need to work together’

It will be interesting to see if the opposition parties do work together. If they do I think they merit the name ‘Fascists United’

Will John Lamont be the spokesman for the ‘Fascists United Group or will it be James Kelly.

“There is no place for sectarianism in Scottish football, however Scottish Greens believe that the Offensive Behaviour in Football Act (2012) unnecessarily restricts freedom of expression and is not the most effective means of addressing these concerns. We support the repeal of the Act and instead would support fans to take action against sectarianism in their own clubs through fan ownership.”

“We support the repeal of the Act and instead would support fans to take action against sectarianism in their own clubs through fan ownership.”

Wonder how Green support would go down at Ibrox. Greens are at a fork in their road to wherever the feck they think they are going.

Greens can either go after toryboy world in Scotland (because blue tories are the actual owners of their Scotland region) like what the SNP do do, in Holyrood and Westminster every day or they can work hand in hand with yoonsters like the BBC, SLab, Ruth MacThatcher etc, to take down Sturgeon.

I’ve yet to hear a ball sing anything or beat anybody up or hate anybody, it’s a game taken over and misused by racist sectarian thugs for their own ends

It’s not football violence, it’s people violence and I don’t care who’s side anybody is on they’re ALL wrong and the only way they’ve managed to get away with it for so long is crowd anonymity,and that makes them cowards thinking they can hide amongst others

Whether the law is bad good or indifferent is totally meaningless, it’s a start and that’s what’s important and the SNP were prepared to make a start but it seems others just want to stop the SNP and couldn’t care less about the law, although we’ll hear the bleating excuses to the contrary from the Parties either hoping to claim some Kafflick votes from one side or Prodisint votes from the other and in truth neither will come to pass because these thugs don’t even have any allegiance to the religion they claim to support

“Even though largely symbolic (police can’t arrest thousands of people en masse), and despite some poor drafting and a considerable degree of obstructive hostility from the judiciary,”

With the utmost respect, you’ve just conceded the pointlessness of the law in the first place.

If, by your own admission, a law is unenforceable, symbolic and guilty of poor drafting (not to mention judicial hostility – the experts in the law) then it does raise the question: what is it’s point?

It has no function if it can’t be enforced. It has no credibility if, by its supporters own admission, it’s badly drafted. And it has precious little ethical credibility in the law if the judiciary are, to quote you, “hostile” to it.

If anything is ‘unholy’, surely it’s retaining a law under these circumstances?

If this act were to he repealed it would make the Scottish Parliament appear as an absolute shame. A bunch of mostly rejected, non directly elected MSP repealing an act in opposition to those directly (for the most part) by the people, of which those people largely support it.

Somewhat makes the House of Lords look legitimate… Perhaps that’s going too far but you get the point.

The mitigating factor being put across by some apparently is that this is happening in a crowd in a football stadium. Were the incident to happen in the middle of a busy shopping centre by a group of say 40 supporters would this be different?

Are we really saying that we are tolerating a venue where singing about hate,bigotry,and violence against others is acceptable I. E. in a football stadium?

If that is the case then we are saying it is acceptable in the “right” circumstances.

I suspect this is a big deal because Ruth & freinds are desperate to show they can live up to their bravado post SS16 & this is their very best chance of putting a cohesive voice on any matter.
The reality is that is just two Vote can be show that it would be wrong to destroy a very popular act but to work from it. Then the illusion the the unionist media has cast of a ham strung SNP will be put to rest.

Catholic Schools were not set up by local authorities. They were set up by Catholic parishes to provide schooling in areas of Scotland where a large immigrant Irish population was facing massive discrimination including resistance to allowing “wee taigs” into local schools. The 1918 Education Act was an act of generosity which brought these underfunded schools into the support of the state education sector. They are only supported in areas where the size of Catholic population justifies their provision.

Oddly enough “faith schools” don’t seen to cause any problem except in Scotland. One wonders why?
Isn’t the problem perhaps a residual anti Irish anti Catholic bigotry which was in fact perfectly respectable in Scotland until fairly recently.

The fact is that if we were starting today all schools would be secular (except those funded by faith organisations which those organisations have every democratic right to do)but we are not starting today. There is historical baggage and remains a totemic issue for a large community in West and Central Scotland. Much of this was the Labour core vote. They are coming with us now. Show some respect.

“There is no place for sectarianism in Scottish football, however Scottish Greens believe that the Offensive Behaviour in Football Act (2012) unnecessarily restricts freedom of expression and is not the most effective means of addressing these concerns. We support the repeal of the Act and instead would support fans to take action against sectarianism in their own clubs through fan ownership.”

Are the Greens arguing that we should be able to express ourselves in any way we want? Are they proposing to have all race/hate crimes repealed?

What kind of action are they proposing fans take against sectarianism? Are they proposing that fans police the football stadiums?

It’s always disappointing that these opposition politicians are never able to come up with an alternative solution to the problem.

Great article, this has to be exposed at every opportunity, for what it is, unionist, opportunist, SNP baaadd.

Just look at what these dangerous, criminal, lying cheating gits are saying. They want to scrap an act which actually keeps the peace to all intents and purposes. Whatever the faults, so called of this act, just to look at the graph, we can all see that it is effective in ensuring that this deliberate, imbecilic and orchestrated behaviour is kept at bay, and out of our communities.

The attempts by the unionists, to stoke up fear and hatred in Scotland has been unsuccessful, so what better way to reintroduce divide.

As I have said here before, I was shocked at the contempt held by friends, family and acquaintances in NE england last year, towards Scotland. Some saying that we would ‘end up like Syria’ and that we were nigh-on a fascist state. UKok state run media, will demonise Scotland, because once you create even an illusion of discord and division, you have the right to go in and sort the barbarians out especially when they are your direct neighbour.

They will do their best to reach their goal, to portray Scotland as an uncontrollable, sectarian, barbaric state, for all the world to judge.

Dangerous bigots have no place in Scotland, we have to make sure to counter this attack from the unionists at all levels, the real criminals are those with the power, and those who choose to create divide, ie the london UK government unionists, and not those who work to keep the peace, ie the SNP government.

What a job we have on our hands, the debunking of the lies and fear tactics is very much an ongoing concern, in fact it is becoming even more essential that we have WoS and WGD, and Carltonjock etc.

There are many issues facing Scotland – being allowed to sing about washing your knees in blood or whatever isn’t high on my to do list. That it is for others sopeaks more of their lack of imagination than anything else. They might also consider that the primary flash point has not existed for the last four years either.

They could repeal this and then when the wheels come off start demanding the Scottish Government “do something” all over again.

The unionists scoured the legislation for their best chance of inflicting an early defeat on the SNP.
It has nothing to do with good law or bad law. It has nothing to do with the lives of those in Scotland. It is merely scalp hunting for any “victory” can be amplified by the MSM into a Ruth Davidson (Unionist win).

A law that the people like and helps end decades of bigotry is reduced to political point scoring. I hope at least a couple of non-SNP MSP think long and hard before they jump on this particular bandwagon.

@ Ruby
I think what they are proposing is that clubs should not be private companies run by Boards of Directors, but should be owned by the fans, like Barcelona. I have no idea how they propose to engineer that situation.

But I know very little about football. Even what I do know is probably wrong.

Could thousands of Orange Order bluenoses belting out GSTQ at an Old Firm game constitute offensive behaviour? Might we actually see people arrested for singing our beloved national anthem? Heaven forfend!

Can someone help me out ,under the OBA which specific songs are deemed to be the illegal ones?
i know if I smoke in Buchanan Galleries i am breaking the law.
I know if I drink 5 pints and drive I am breaking the law.
However if I attend a football match I have an idea which songs are offensive, however I do not know which are illegal.
Does anyone know, or is it at the whim of a passing PC Plod?

“I’m sorry but this is a seriously ill-informed piece about the legislation and it’s inner workings as well as the affect it has had on peoples lives.”

Nah! You are not in the slightest sorry. You are delighted in attempting to jump on the same band-waggon as the rest of the minority political parties in Scotland.

Furthermore, also like the opposition parties at Holyrood, you make a seriously doubtful claim, “This bill is so bad it has united football fans from Edinburgh to Glasgow, from Perth to Aberdeen against it.”

Of course it has, there is an exodus from all corners of Scotland, (and a few more from Ireland), to any football encounter involving the two most sectarian orientated and historically Irish, supported clubs, (and not even only when they play each other). I doubt, though, it involves a majority of the actual followers of the other city football clubs.

The statistics not only show the legislation is supported by a majority of Scots but other stats show that the sectarianism, involved by those two teams in particular, has resulted in a constant loss of support for top flight football right across Scotland.

The Scottish government I hope will put it to the vote as is and make the opposition parties vote it down because that will make the National news on all platforms UK and EU wide and will show up Scotlands petty opposition for what it is

The Tories, Labour, Liberal Democrats and The Green Party
ALL
SUPPORT sectarian offensive behaviour at football matches

Nearly forgot Labour wants to bring back Alcohol as well
Good for business they say, they must mean A&E business I guess

The three main Unionist parties all have a long history of vested interest in sectarianism: both ends to the middle. Patrick Harvie is being courted by the Unionist media to vote against the SNP and may be just daft enough to just do that and sign his own suicide note.

For example:“Founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, English and Catalan footballers led by Joan Gamper, the club has become a symbol of Catalan culture and Catalanism, hence the motto “Més que un club” (More than a club).

Unlike many other football clubs, the supporters own and operate Barcelona. It is the second most valuable sports team in the world, worth $3.56 billion, and the world’s second richest football club in terms of revenue, with an annual turnover of €560.8 million. The official Barcelona anthem is the “Cant del Barça”, written by Jaume Picas and Josep Maria Espinàs.”

That would reduce the malign influence of what Kenny McKenna calls “the Blazerati”.

After a referendum which NO narrowly won, a general election in which one Tory MP was returned and a Scottish election in which they got just 20% of the vote, the Scottish conservatives have deduced that the most important issue facing the Scottish people is the offensive behaviours at football act. Stunning!
It’s clear to me where the offensive behaviour is coming from, the red and blue tories standing shoulder to shoulder, as ever.

“Such a moron sometimes Rev. Existing laws were fine when used this act has been a sham.”

The stats prove, Garry that the act has been exactly the opposite of a sham. They prove to have been highly effective. Thus, Garry, to claim the Rev is a Moron only serves to indicate that there is something moronic in reading those states and failing to grasp their significance.

“Now leave football to those who understand it.

Are we to take it as read that those who, “Understand Football”, would be YOU Garry?

Given your previous commentary on other football related matters you would think you would leave it well alone.

Oh! Aye! What other commentary related matters would those be, Garry? Do please elucidate for we poor uncouth, uneducated, misunderstood morons who lack knowledge of the finer points of the Beautiful Game?

I’ll put that another way for you, Garry.

Are you now, or have you ever been, a supporter of a sectarian orientated, Irish political/religious motivated, Glasgow based Football Club?

Try googling either Rangers or Celtic fan forums and look at the content therein. Coming as it does from people who identify themselves from all walks of life.

Plenty of references to Taigs, Tarriers, hun scum, fenian, the choice is endless. It happens outside the grounds already so why do we need to allow it inside as well? Have a happy family day out dodging the objects thrown (coins) and letting your kids hear both sides of the religious debate set to music. Teach them to participate whilst they are young and impressionable.

Really, when you step back and have a right look at this, it’s no more than the opposition deciding to try and give the SNP government a bloody nose Just cause we can, so there.

Pathetic. As I said earlier, Ruth, where are your policies, amendments to the bill, or even an idea might be welcome. But just because you think that you won the election you have to try and prove SNP BAAAAD, cause I’m the big cheese aroon here. Gie’s a break. Are you trying to keep this up for the next 5 years.

Never did trust the greens, and they seem to be showing their true colours already. SLAB, should be afraid, very afraid. There’s still the cooncil elections to come next, and we’re no din wi’ you yet.

As an Arab myself, I think I’m not in a minority of thoe supporters of OTHER teams saying I don’t really care about this legislation. Generally I don’t agree with singling out any particular groups for special treatment or attention, whether that be creating a label specially for Jews (anti-Semitism) or for those obsessed with Irish religion and history. Did the polls ask how much people cared?

What I do care about is Unionist parties sitting down looking at weaknesses in the SNP to attack them and at the same time build up loyalty from a minority of (probably mostly) bigots who actually DO care about this legislation and are opposed. Like big Jim’s ‘vote for me I’ll let you drink at the footy’, I don’t think this form of populism is going to get you too far and it makes you look a bit Micky Mouse in your quality ratings, but let’s face it, that’s been the biggest problem for Labour and LibDems (at least in terms of public perception) for a while and maybe the Tories want to join them.

As for Scotland’s seemingly unique fascination for Irish history and Catholics v Protestants, I think it’s sadly a bit of a distraction from the real discrimination which takes place today against immigrants and economic under classes. I always remember a law tutor of mine years ago saying that she didn’t notice a lot of religious discrimination amongst the Judiciary in Scotland: they all seemed to have gone to Glasgow High or St Aloysius.

”Right across the press and politics spectrum, not one voice can be found speaking up in favour of the Act.

*** Except, that is, for the VOICE of the PEOPLE.” ***

Well that’s it in a nutshell Stu. That’s why the SNP have managed to ”win a historic third election with a second massive landslide, getting more than twice as many seats as their (your) nearest challenger – the first time such a thing has ever happened in a Holyrood election – on the back of what’s (self-evidently) by and large a very popular policy programme and record ….”

THEY listen to the people but it’s clear that the ‘Unionist’ parties in Scotland don’t, rather are listening to their ‘Ulsterisation hype’ bosses in London …. Again. ”Do all you can to discredit Nicola Sturgeon and smash the SNP / Independence movement no matter the impact on Scotland. Divide and conquer.”

They think they’re being smart …. hey ho look at how powerful we are, however the Scots are watching them all VERY closely now and this move wont be doing them any favours especially if sectarian violence and disgusting rhetoric exacerbates.

I can see where the the Tories are coming from. Westminster has exploited just about every country on the planet and when they see that they’re going to get kicked out they divide the country and leave the population at each others throats, such as in India and Palestine.

The Libdems led by Rennie come across as a bunch of troublemaking dullards that, as ONE example, stymied the opportunity to do away with the Corroboration Law / protect Scottish children from paedophiles. The Greens? I don’t know where they’re going with this but should keep in mind they they can fall more quickly than they rise …. like a sponge cake

However it’s SLab that I can’t get away with. Every time that they’ve been decimated recently I’ve heard SLab MSPs, such as deadbeat James Kelly, state that one of the things that they’ll have to do in future is get into their communities and speak to the people. I’ve been really dumbfounded by this, thinking why not before now, and have an image in my head of them all sitting behind closed doors, too disinterested, lazy or feart to go out, stabbing each other in the back or quietly filling in their expense claims forms. They don’t even have to go out and speak to people just sit on their ar*es as usual and take a look at the polls. 80% of people agree with the SNP …. DON’T agree with them.

Wasn’t this one of the issues that brought about Murphy’s downfall? And then there’s Kezia Dugdale advocating reintroducing alcohol at the games. Kezia that bleats on constantly about caring for children, concerned about their education and angered about the life chances of children in care. She says she wants to tackle poverty, injustice and child / domestic abuse but against the advice of experts who have pointed out that alcohol plays a large part in such abuse (and children being taken into care) she is quite happy to turn a blind eye to the misery being created by the drunken father / husband taking his fitbae teams loss out on his wife and children. Women sitting at home keeping their fingers crossed that his team wins. If not hell on earth for them all that night / weekend.

Maybe the SNP not having a majority is the best thing that could have happened. We’ll now see what the Greens plan to do. We’ll also see how often kamikaze SLab continue to ‘pal it’ with the Tories to the detriment of the Scots / Scotland. If they do they’re over and out and we may find that some of the 500,000 people who voted for them last week will finally see the light and join us.

Taranaich very well said, on Arran even until the fifties Catholic Families were not welcome, at that time most jobs and houses were in the gift of the Laird. Even today there is a very strong bluenose following on the Island , however I’m glad to say that many are for Indy.

My Catholic Paternal Grandmother married a Protestant, two girls were brought up Catholic whilst the two boys were brought up Protestant . how daft is that? I have taken the sensible path of
Rejecting the superstitions of Iron Age goat Herders and religion, well apart from Pastarafarianism !

There were only two seats in Glasgow where the SNP got less than 50% of the vote, Rutherglen and Kelvin. the old firm grounds are in neither. Not sure if local councils can pass by laws banning some songs in certain conditions or not. Wouldn’t trust the current lot in Glasgow to do so.

As to the domestic violence increases. There’s nothing in those reports that show the increase is unique to old firm games. For instance derby games in other cities might also show increases. Nor is there anything said about whether the result has any bearing on where those incidents are liable to take place.

“Nah, the Greens backed trams because they run on leccy rather than diesel.”

Nah! Even if that were indeed the case, Doug, it only serves to highlight the total lack of proper scientific knowledge behind The Greens more quirky and idiotic policies.

As long as the main bulk of the UK’s electricity is generated from Nuclear, (the most dirty, dangerous fuel in existence), Diesel, Gas and Coal then electricity is not, in any way, a greener option for transport of any kind.

All those electrically powered trams achieve, (at the present time), is to move the bad effects of electricity generation from tram served city centres to the local sites where the power is generated, mined and processed.

Now, in my book, that is Nimbyism of the most cynical and ignorant kind.

It also helps to increase the total load of toxic waste matter away taken away from cities into other. more green, places. They do not dispose of nuclear waste, ash and CO2 in the city Centres but do so in more remote beauty spots.

Try telling the Greens that though and you will be attacked just as vigorously as they now seem about to line-up yet again with the Unionist hate-mongers.

my beloved Dundee United craftily managed to escape next seasons fixtures with them.

fiendishly clever they arabs, so they are… 🙂

nicola should just have a quiet word with uefa, get them to monitor, with iphones, the crowds at these grounds. video images of people singing offensive songs should incur immediate fines and repeat offences banning from european competition. she could ask the sfa but they are too scared of the old firm.

As you all know I am committed to bringing clarity, substance, and impartiality to all discussions. Here is my analysis.

The OBFA legislation is essentially sound but it has been implemented in such a way as to make it look like the sectarian problem is a problem of two equal sides who are equally guilty. The media plays a part in this too and uses this device with with other issues like Israel-Palestine.

The truth is that one side is largely to blame and is much more sectarian than the other. That’s my personal experience of the problem. I think the Police in an effort to make it look like a problem shared equally on both sides of the divide have been targeting Celtic fans more than Rangers fans.

I dont support football or any team. The game bores me to tears. I am not of catholic or protestant faith and have absolutely no interest or anything to gain here whatsoever.

I understand that it is probably easier to deal with the problem if we blame both sides in equal measure but the truth on the ground suggests that isn’t very fair.

This reminds me of a seemingly weird anomaly from the book Freakonomics — putting more cops on the beat results in an increase in crime. In other words, cops cause crime. Sounds weird but it’s true because the increased number of cops detect more crime. That seems to be what is happening with this OBFA in respect of Celtic fans.

Dean MacKinnon-Thomson says: 12:38
“If anything is ‘unholy’, surely it’s retaining a law under these circumstances?”
unenforceable you say? but if you read the article it has a conviction rate of 82%, contrast that statistic with that of around 90% of those reporting rape will never see their case reach court?
I think your argument needs reviewing.

Let’s say you write a song about hatred of gay people or those with disability.That would be illegal.

Anti catholic songs describing them as foreigners ,unwashed, someone you would kill ( up to our knees in fenian blood,surrender or you’ll die). The famine song.That’s a goody about how anybody not Scots protestant should “go home”.

On the other side, the same. You see my friend religious intolerance is just as much an offence for inter Scots relationships ,as it would be to stand outside an Indian restaurant berating them and singing insulting songs at themfor being Muslims. It is about catholic/ protestant intolerance of each other. Thankfully not the majority.

My, my, this OBFA is an emotive issue.
One or two posters have mentioned a list of “banned” songs; difficult to put together. Some songs, sung at folk clubs or at pubs, are entirely inoffensive, but are very much so sung at football.
For instance, The Sash is,on reading the lyrcs, an Ulster Loyalist song, with no inoffensive lyrics – but when 80% of a full-house Ibrox crowd is belting it out, to many people, it is offensive.
Back in the early 1960s, BBC Scotland did a folk music programme from Edinburgh. The show always ended with all the artistes joining-in with one song. One evening, they ended the show, which went out live, with a massed rendition of The Sash. Nothing wrong with that, The Corries (then ‘The Corrie Folk Trio’ with Paddy Bell) led off, everyone joined in. I was watching at my cousin’s tenement home in Springburn, when he recognised the song, my uncle immediately turned-up the sound to full volume and opened the front door – to let the Catholic family across the landing, with whom he generally got on well, have the full effect.
It is such gross stupidity which the OBFA attempts to curb.
On the other side, “The Fields of Athenry” is a very-familiar Irish song. It has become something of an anthem for the Irish national side, and the four provincial professional rugby sides – it even features at Liverpool games. Great song, but, at Old Firm games, when sung by the Celtic choir, it doesn’t half wind-up the opposition.
I still maintain, if the football authorities really cracked down on the clubs – told them, this is offensive, you are responsible for your fans’ behaviour and if you do not stop them behaving this way – you will lose points, then the offensive behaviour would stop and we would not need this act.
But, I am not holding my breath for this to happen.
And don’t forget, Artur Boric “the Holy Goalie”, got into a wee bit of bother: “for crossing himself in an aggressive manner”, as he wound-up Ra Peepul.

As you point out, Rev, the law is supported by what I would call real football fans. This petty attempt to oppose the SG rather reeks of Bitter Together vindictiveness, and to top it off James Kelly, Mogadon Man himself, recently evicted by the people of Ru’glen, starts thumping the table and shouting the odds.

Supporting the retrograde and divisive elements in the Tory and Labour parties is not a good look, surely, for Patrick Harvie.

Do they really think saying, “Look, we all got humped at the election but we’re all going to vote agin the SG just ‘cos we can” is going to impress people in Scotland?

“As you all know I am committed to bringing clarity, substance, and impartiality to all discussions. Here is my analysis.”

the cops are bigoted, and if there were no cops there would be no crime,

You go on holiday and when you get back you find the lunatics have multiplied!well here is my tuppence worth, if the bigots are squealing then the law is working, sectarianism is a cancer, labour lived my that cancer, as did the Tory’s before them, but Scotland is on the move, we don’t want this cancer eating our young any-more, and Sturgeon is the surgeon to do the job.

That the first order of business for these 65 msps should be scrapping THIS piece of legislation shows you where their priorities lie.

I think it will turn into one of they boomerangs. We have, what, 20 old firm games coming up over the next 5 years and whatever trouble occurs in Ibrox and Parkhead and on the streets of Glasgow- Nicola will be able to look across the chamber and ask the 65 if they were happy to have given the SNP a bloody nose.

I will be emailing all of my opposition regional list MSPs who are there to represent me and not their leadership to ask them to vote against repelling this piece of legislation.

It only takes a couple of MSPs voting with the SNP to avoid this. I will remind them that if there is a rise in sectarian violence as a result of their actions they will be responsible.

I would urge everyone to do likewise- by all means suggest ways in which the laws can be improved and if their are positive suggestions I’m sure the SNP would be delighted to work with them to improve it.

Someone will die early next season; merely for wearing a replica football strip, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In advance , I lay the blame squarely at the feet of WATP Adam Tomkins,and The Queen’s Eleven Murdo Fraser,and Ruth Davidson, for resurrecting Teddy Taylor’s ‘and Unionist’ tag.
You may recall that bringing back hanging and the birch were two of Teddy’s USP’s.
He freely admitted that the Tories in Scotland courted the sectarian loyalist vote.
He didn’t give a fuck.
Someone will die. I find these warped little games played out by notably the Tories, but also the Kellys Murphys and Dugdales of the Unionist sewer pit, to be subversive, rabble rousing and downright dangerous.
How deep in the shit will these people sink, just for a shot at the gravy train?

Electric vehicles in general separate the energy extraction apparatus from the bit doing the transporting. Depending on line losses being able to use transmission lines makes it even better than on board batteries.

Not having to carry the generator, regardless of fuel, means its weight is no longer a concern so features that might make it more efficient or capture harmful emissions can be implemented that would be skimped on if it was mobile.

Not forgetting that there can be more than one source for the electricity which can either be renewable, fossil or nuclear. It’s a bit of a two edged sword.

What might be considered stupid though was going for tram rather than trolleysbus. The latter would have been a shit load faster to install and get running. Even if you wanted to do away with the driver modern control systems could cope.

I have no personal opinion on this act, nor any interest. Junior league is about my mark, and I haven’t had time for years to go to a match. To me Premier league is all about grossly overpaid prima donnas looking for an Oscar.

But I’ve been asked my opinion by sensible posters in the Herald as they think it’s bad, and do I think something should be done about it? My answer was similar to the first line of my posting.

What this tells me – theses are sensible posters – is that it’s a bad act and needs to be either greatly changed, or indeed, repealed.

BBC Scotland used to show endless Scottish football riots in close up, so they’ll probably by boosting Kelly’s thing.

From that BBC Scotland generation, here’s Eddie Mair, who kicked off his GERS £15bn black hole Scotland r4 PM interview with Swinney, ” John Swinney, you should be begging the thanks of no voters now?”

It’s also essential not to set a precedent that lures the non-Tory parties into accepting abolishing rather than amending laws. Remember that even though, thankfully, human rights legislation is devolved it still remains stated policy by some at Westminster that the existing laws be entirely scrapped in order that a UK Bill or Rights be introduced.

The law in question is simply one more of the making it fucking clear to the public not to be a nob kind. It’s in the same vein as those against using a hand held mobile phone whilst driving settling the argument about whether that’s dangerous driving or not. The same might also be said about speeding although there’s still an onus on the driver to adjust for weather conditions.

In terms of the SGP’s “principles”, they will be horse-traded to within a hair’s breadth, and maybe beyond, as they try to figure out what is REALLY important to them, or rather, their leadership.

Staying visible, and having “influence” is all they will care about. Their green credentials will be in tatters within a few months if they head off down the pro-sectarian, pro-(multi-colour) tory route.

Sectarianism has tentacles in all parts of society. You would imagine the SNP who are trying to keep the legislation, came from another world. They have lived ,worked ,studied and grown up here.Theh know the scale and reach of the problem. They are trying to reduce this vile part of Scottish everyday life and commit it to where it belongs.The past.

Fields of Athenry was not in itself offensive.It pointed out the cruelty of the British judicial system of the time,but others which were sung such as we’re off to Dublin in the Green had verses changed by the support to include” bayonets slashing Orange sashes etc. ”

All legislation is meant to act as a deterrant. The purpose is not to get as many convictions as possible, but to discourage people from acting in unacceptable ways. If the convictions are relatively few, this is a sign that the deterrant is working.

Successful prosecutions are not lacking, but the fact that they are not as numerous as might have been expected means, precisely, that the SNP’s Offensive Behaviour Act is having the desired effect.

Let’s face it, most people have no idea what exactly the law says. All they really know about it is that they can now be prosecuted for singing sectarian songs at football matches. Therefore they don’t do it any more, even if they used to. And that is already a very good thing.

However badly worded it might be, this law is effective. And the vast majority of Scots like the effect it is having.

So what happens if members of the Scottish Combined Idiotic Parties (SCIP) get together to abolish it? What kind of message will that be for those people who had begun to desist from their erstwhile offensive behaviour?

Does it not simply tell them – these idotic beneficiaries of the SCIP abolition – to go and belt it out all the louder.

SCIP’s message to the bigoted minorities who are hell bent on poisoning the wells of Scottish football is this: ‘Go ahead, you Idiots, and be even more offensive than you ever were before! Disgrace us all!’

By abolition, the SCIP will not simply be ‘allowing’ but actively ‘encouraging’ the singing of offensive sectarian songs at football matches. They will thus deal a blow to the whole anti-sectarian movement, of which the SNP’s legislation was only a part.

However much the Combined Idiots of SCIP may whine about leaving the problem to be addressed by voluntary initiatives – just listen to the manifest nonsense of the Greens’ manifesto on the matter – there is no way of getting back to the situation that existed before the Act was introduced.

Either Scotland goes forward by strengthening and improving the legislation, or else it sinks backwards into the age-old mire, now stickier and more slimy than ever, where sectarianism masqueraded as conviction, and was accepted as normal, engrained and ineradicable.

Abolition will act like a bellows, fanning the flame of what should have been the dying embers of sectarianism, and bringing it all to life again. If Holyrood approves it – for that is what abolition means – who can prevent it? Who dare oppose it?

After abolition, the problem will be worse than ever.

The SNP’s law put out the message, ‘you had better not do that!’, and most people conformed. Now the Holyrood SCIP want to send out the opposite message. And, however much they camouflage it, their combined idiotic reflections infesting football grounds and destroying the enjoyment of real fans, will ‘hear’ it the very way it was intended: ‘Just do it! Do it even more than you ever did before! Just sing these offensive songs! And sing them more lustily than you ever have! We permit you; we applaud you; we approve you … ‘

How the Idiotic minorities in our football grounds will revel in it, spoiling the game for everyone else.

And how the rest of Scotland will be reviled by it!

At least everyone will now be aware of the sub-theme that ran through the recent Holyrood election campaign, like an undercover secret agent, without ever daring to speak its name … The Conservative and Unionist Party in Scotland Approves Sectarianism.

And so do all those who combine with it.

But most of us don’t. Most Scots will see through it, and won’t follow the evident sham, and lie, that it is.

All the SNP has to do is to invite the other Parties to join with them in finding ways to improve the legislation, and make it work even better … And if, ignoring that appeal, the SCIP just cry ‘abolition’, the great majority of the Scottish public will know who they are and, at the next opportunity, what to do with them.

Okay you are right,it was 3 years ago and opposition to legislation should only be once in a generation !

Not at all. Whether or not this law is any good, and it may not be etc But whether or not its any good, unionistas like Kelly, Ruth and Harvie repealing, it will just be another big weird stick to beat the SNP and the whole YES movement ofcourse.

If Kelly’s repeal does get the backing of the Greens, you’ll be all be able to sing about killing each other with out worrying about getting nicked for it. And the Green blockers will have done their jobs for the whole UKOK creep show in Scotland.

Just dont kid yourself yoon culture and the Greens in particular, give a hoot about Scottish football.

Is it too much to hope for a Scotland were people treat each other with respect, even if, horror of horrors, they support a different football team? Is it right to be “FANatical” about anything? Is the tribalism that surrounds football good for the game? Why would anyone want to sing a song that causes offence? Why would anyone take offence just because someone sang a song? Will we ever get to a point where supporters (not fans) of both sides at a football game go home happy at having been entertained, content in the knowledge that the better team won?

We should keep the legislation and improve on it where there is a case for doing so. We should keep it because it is attempting to contain a sinister and shameful problem in our society. It is woefully inadequate, but it is better than nothing.

Politicians who seek to abolish the legislation just to give the SNP a bloody nose and because they can are contemptible. In whose interests will it really be if they succeed? Certainly not the Scottish people’s interests. Their view is clear.

Here’s what I fear could be the unionist’s playbook on this subject. Repeal the OBFA, but don’t propose anything in it’s place (or at least, don’t propose anything other than vague “we should do it some other way” quotes). Optionally, follow Dugdale’s lead and get alcohol more widely available at the matches too … Wait for the inevitable public order issues, then claim “The SNP are obsessed with independence when they should be focussing on the problems that Scotland faces today!”.

You wouldn’t necessarily need any agent provocateurs, as alcohol plus the lunatic fringe which exists in football fandom would surely be quite capable of kicking things off all by themselves. If they (the unionist parties) really wanted to play with fire, they could then attempt to be as obstructive as possible (whilst claiming “We’re only holding the SNP to account”!) so as to delay/water-down any attempts to deal with the resulting mess.

I want to think I’m being excessively cynical here, but I fear I might not be?

It is deemed that Rangers fans are much more guilty of sectarianism than anyone else in Scotland, including Celtic fans, and accordingly OBFA is being used to distort realities. The bill in itself is probably sound but is being implemented badly and unjustly.

Frankly, football is tedious for me so I shall leave you all to fizzle out on the subject.

All the SNP need to do is promise the Greens a free-speech-preserving amendment to the bill (such as moving more liability onto the clubs), and all the Greens have to do is abstain and let the Unionist parties embarrass themselves.

The same deal could be offered to the Lib Dems, but they don’t really stand for anything and anyway you can’t take them at their word these days.

To be honest, I’d be in favour of MUCH stronger free speech protection (including comprehensive whistle-blower laws that would no doubt discomfit the British State somewhat) and slip them in as part of the deal. Win win.

Until the minority that cant behave themselves get sorted out No Booze and No singing pish songs about centuries old troubles and that should be the end of it.Instead of enabling it these folk really need to give themselves a shake, I live in Glasgow and it certainly is a minority who can’t behave and they shouldn’t be allowed to ruin it for the majority.

Let’s put Davidson, Dugdale, Harvie and Rennie in amongst the bigot brothers at each game, at the segregation sections, and let’s see if they still think it is a good idea. I somehow doubt they would be seen with the riff raff. They just want to pull the pin out of the grenade, throw it into the room and runaway shouting “it was Nicola what did it”

The act was not just about sectarianism only those with a guilty conscience think that.

It was to stop football violence and to help the police make a list of known thugs out to cause trouble,which all clubs in Scotland have including my own Falkirk.

I dont see any English clubs or politicians saying lets go back to the good old days of running battles across our towns and cities where people end up in hospital because of the team they support.

Scotland was never as bad as this but that does not mean we do not have the same problem or that we should not tackle it.

Personally i would like to see the act go further and use the threat the English used get your shit in order or play behind closed doors ,this threat made the good fans out the bad ones and the clubs police their own fans.

Did it work well take a look at English football fans now dads and mums with the kids out for a day of fun,big change from 15 foot fences and the police chasing thugs all over the towns and cities trying to stop them fighting each other.

As for the yoons ganging up let them they are digging their own graves if they think pandering to these eejits is going to make them popular with the rest of Scotland.

@K1, the Brigton case was by somebody called Campbell who hopefully is still inside & another murder out in Lanarkshire where some lowlife knifed another young guy who just happened to be passing. Two tragic deaths is far too many, doubtless there are others.

This does mean as well that if we see certain people in the street we can march straight up and be totally offensive via a deemed football related chanting song and scream it into the face of such people and that be found to be freedom of expression

There are people who will do that in exactly those terms if they should happen across any little power mad Dick-tator who expresses himself in terms of “The people of Scotland have to accept”
(HIS WORDS)
Those same words were used on the Sunday politics to Gordon Brewer in reference to the Scottish Government

Warned Warned and Warned again by this site and others and now the excuses and the reasons and Aye buts and the don’t make enemies brigade, which is a threat of withdrawal of support in the future if they’re not treated nicely for doing exactly what they’re doing now which is screwing the people who’s coat tails they hung on to in order to get them where they are… But we’d better not offend anybody eh ………(Negotiate Negotiate)

It could be that one of the main purposes of the Act was to foster awareness of sectarian behaviour. If I have this right it expires next year anyway, unless renewed. Perhaps that purpose of the Act has already been achieved, and it’s largely irrelevant if it gets repealed or not.

But for a political party to set out to repeal it, rather than amend it, is insanity. There’s no political capital for them to make out of it, and no useful purpose.

Where there would be sense if they pushed for amendments or a new replacement Act, one more suited for purpose. And on their hand the SNP should react to public pressure in a positive way – offer as part of their programme for the first session of Holyrood 2016, to set up a committee to examine it.

The SNP should do the same for the named person act, with a view to making small amendments. It’s called “drawing teeth”, and coincidentally shows an intent to go for democratic concensus politics, which will really put the other parties back in their box.

Incidentally I heard in the background an interesting comment on the BBC1 program after midnight, to the effect that Cameron is at a disadvantage because he doesn’t have the LibDems to moderate his policies, nor does he have their support.

It’s an interesting idea, bearing in mind the minority SNP Government about to start.

I’ll second that, heedtracker. It is not conducive to good public order to have sects battling it out on our streets.

However, I’d go much further and make any form of discrimination, by anyone, anywhere subject to the same laws. No need to categorise the form of discrimination. I’m 80 next birthday and I’ve seen all forms of really, really brainless discrimination.

Everything from discrimination against ginger hair to just a dislike of someone’s accent.

All the fitba clubs in Scotland should develop an ‘exchange’ programme, whereby each team’s fixture is altered in such a way that the ‘old old firm’ and all other matches’ are played in different parks throughout the fitba season.

So all the fans can turn up to the various places within Scotland to see their teams play in completely different ‘environments’.

Let’s see…now how would ‘that’ go down in Edinburgh, ye know…the Tory/Labour heartlands…d’ye think their ‘core’ vote would like a wee taste of that ‘medicine’ and do you think the Unionist parties ‘swelling’ numbers would ‘swell’ no more?

Can’t help but feel this is a deliberate ploy to ‘divide’ the big Yes city. In fact I’m certain it is.

It is not an Act but just on of the issues covered in the Children and Young Persons Act which all the parties voted for apart from the Tories.

The section of the act relating to named persons has already been subject to judicial review which upheld that section and the appeal against that decision was lost. The groups bringing these actions have now taken the matter to the UK Supreme Court who have still to announce their verdict.

Labour’s U-turn on their support for this during the election was a blatant piece of political opportunism.

I do not see any reason why the legislation should be amended under these circumstances and many reasons why it should not be amended.

If the SG were to give way on this when it has been fully evaluated then they can pretty well kiss goodbye to their legislative programme for the next 5 years. The other parties will have drawn blood and will go for more.

Not really too good an idea, Cat.
All that will do is give the other lot a free run and reinforce the OO present claims of victimisation.

There is an equivalent faction in the other sectarian lot who are every bit as bad. Not only that but there have been other team supporters in the recent past attempting to emulate the two main bigoted lots.

I’m always amused by those who ask for examples of offensive songs. They usually already know what these are because they have been part of the childhood memories of most Scots. In fact the words hardly matter because the INTENT of the song is to OFFEND.

A squaddie in the Army can say “Yes Sir” and by tone of voice and by leaving just a little space between those two words manage to show total contempt. It is for that reason you cannot provide lists. Almost the day after the ban came in I listened to a very loud rendition of “…the shoe my father wore”

We are all Scots and we need to reject these attempts at division. If people need a banner or colour to unite under try the Saltire and blue/white and if you want to sing try Flower of Scotland. It is not a freedom of speech issue because two rights clash – the right to offend does not trump the right of another not to be subjected to the assault. ( the classic case of you not having the right to shout fire in a theatre.

If you want to build a fairer society then I cannot think of a better place to start than declaring bigotry unacceptable.

There’s certainly a few hundred there, looks nowhere near 3000 to me. But let’s be super-generous and assume it is – that’s 3% of the average weekly crowds of Celtic and “Rangers” alone. And it’s not like it was a long journey, and it was a matchday so they were already out.

ban walks from both sides, or at least make them pay the policing costs

most other towns and cities got rid of orange walks in the 60-70s, the sectarianism fizzled out shortly afterwards

as for upsetting celtic and rangers fans… it is pointed out by many that they are actually a very small minority even in glasgow.

i think we, and the sfa, have peddled to them for long enough.

the sectarian chanting is filmed and posted onto you tube every week. a high powered zoom lens should be employed then the offenders posted onto social media. name and shame time. we dont even need to pass new laws to do this.

Employers would feel pressurised to sack people outed in this manner. sexist and racist remarks are no longer tolerated in this society, neither should sectarianism

The classic Yoon agenda, oppose anything that leans towards
a civil society, so lets have Saturday afternoons showing the world arseholes in action.
We can’t have the sweatys looking like they have evolved into a forward, peaceful thinking nation, no lets go back to the good old days of being embarrassed to be Scottish when the knuckle draggers on all sides use 90mins of Shite on a Saturday to vent their spleen much to the amusement of their masters. Looks like pints of “beat the wife up” might be on sale again, after all bad news sells newspapers.
Me cynical???
I remember outside some miner welfare clubs years ago looking like battle fields when the “late” old firm played,if this policy is blocked, then every person hurt whether it be physicaly or mentally, should sue the dickheads who voted against the SNP.

“Lets see the Yoon parties squirm at that idea”.

You never know, this new team called Sevco, Serco, Sebco, Serpico Rangers or whatever, might have sensible fans who will support the bill!?!?
O/T
If “The Donald” wins the election, who would have thought the film Team America would be like watching America under his leadership. (Time to bring back Spitting Image)
“F*CK YEH”

This act was rushed in to cover a multitude of agendas which were decided offensive, according to the SNP. The OBAF act being a part. Offence has a broad interpretation and regardless, it should never be a criminal act on its own. Threatening behaviour and inciting violence, now that is a trigger for a criminal act but not just being offensive without intent. Intent is the key.

Standing on a terrace chanting whatever, should never be a criminal act. Offence should never be a criminal act. If we go down this road, we have lost. Our freedom of expression has been taken away. Look at the Muslims in England, demonstrating each summer, to kill the infidels, burn the police and telling our Queen to go to hell. Now I find that offensive but they have the right to chant what they like. This is the free West and we are a democracy. No one should ever be made a criminal through offensive speech. If we go down that route, we are screwed. This is what happens in regimes like Saudi or Pakistan or Russia etc etc. We are not a regime.

Now just victimising football fans, especially the old firm, is unbelievable. I bet most commenters here on Wings, never go to any football matches, yet are experts on the OF chants. Because it has no effect on your lives, and because you are supporting a political movement, you really couldn’t care less about other people, and find it acceptable to criminalise the common man, to promote your personal political agenda. I suspect these acts are more in way of protecting the immigrant yet to be forced upon us in huge number. Football is the SNP’s excuse to implement laws to prevent us from speaking out in opposition in the future.

The way to tackle sectarianism, is in the primary schools. The single religion school is ridiculous. The forced teaching of other religions on our children, under the guise of education. Religion should be a very very optional extra. It is the root cause of all our modern day problems and it needs to be reigned in. Do that, and we will be on the correct path.

@Legerwood
It’s not major changes needed, in fact it’s little more than cosmetic, but Government’s are not appointed or voted for to sit and say yah boo sucks to opposition parties, they are there to legislate for the people – and respond where neccessary.

What happened is that all of those taking part in the Committees and debates thought about the primary purpose of the Act which I don’t think any single person actually disagrees with, but didn’t cater for what could be called justifiable concern that it would interfere with rights of totally non-offensive parents.

All that’s need is very very minor changes to address that. Judicial reviews have nothing to do with genuine concerns, only the Law. It’s for Governments to address concerns. And much legislation is subject to minor changes in later years, to close loopholes or remove categories to which the legislation should not have applied.

In fact if the SNP respond to public concerns and open this to such minor changes, it makes them look good, not bad, and wrong-foots the opposition parties. They have support from the Greens anyway, and I doubt Labour will really cause any problems.

Tbh, religion can go f*ck itself. Giving legal power to religious nuts on either side is a step backwards. The argument that it could start a riot is daft, does that mean these games arent properly segregated or policed? You could stick your tongue out at one another and could cause unrest. We are basically comparing singing at football matches to saying bomb in an airport, difference between them is one could start panic and crushing and the other a roll of the eyes and a frown. Not against the legislation, im against religion.

Funny rev how you want the hatred at football to be a thing of the past but cant get over your hatred of Rangers, contradicting your stance.

I cannot tell you the exact year, but, it was before 1975. I was at the Ayr Gaiety to see their summer show: ‘The Gaiety Whirl’ starring Johnny Beattie.
He told a contrived and unfunny story, the punch line to which was: “But, you always get trouble with the sash Mia Farrow wore”.

More than 40 years have passed – and we are still having bother with “the sash Mia Farrow wore”.

Be wary of the sectarian unionists. Loss of Glasgow Council is their next big worry – so where better to be seen to be against the Offensive Behaviour at football act than there. Historically “divide and rule” worked for the British Empire in many colonies leading, unfortunately, to massive loss of life. They are now so scared of losing Scotland they will stoop to anything!

Just heard Chris Grayling giving evidence to NI Committee that with the tax varying powers being devolved there are consequences such as if Scotland decided to lower taxes the Barnet formula would not go up to compensate for any loss of income
And here’s the good bit

He said if Scotland were to raise taxes then the Barnet formula would be lowered accordingly

All a bit horses mouth there saying there are no tax raising powers coming to Scotland there are only bits of paper that say there are
So if we use them to raise any money all we’re doing is taxing people for no reason other than making people worse off

Mr Grayling also admitted EVEL was specifically designed to stop the SNP in coalition with a possible future Labour government running England because the good people of England apparently wouldn’t stand for that

As for the unionists, expect the blue of the tories and the red of labour to morph into a royal and loyal purple opposition with the anticipation of an ermine robe at some juncture for selling Scots down the river.

@call me dave
It’s a clever move from Mundell. A proposed extension does take it into England and via Longtown to Carlisle. Which tightens the bond in the Borders. His “co-operation” gives that more weight, and puts pressure on the Scottish Government.

Personally I’d prefer to see a connection north of the border via Langholm, just north of Gretna with a new through route to Dumfries to tighten the bond east to west of the Borders with D&G – within Scotland. Then where it joins north of the border, trains can go south on the main line to Carlisle, or west to Annan / Dumfries. I don’t know of any proposed route that does that though, and I have a feeling it would be more expensive, probably a lot more.

Henichen
Is it your first post here? If so, all new posters go into moderation for the 1st comment. It has to be accepted manually. Once that’s done any other posts you create will be posted automatically.

it is sectarian to fund catholic schools but not jewish or muslim schools. All or nothing
state funding of any religious organisation is undemocratic since most people, nowadays, are not religious.
Promotion of religious groups, fuels sectarianism. the state should have nothing to do with religion. end of.

the state should fund schools, Sure, but if you want your children to be educated about some sky fairy, take them to a church, just dont expect tax payers to fund this.

I didn’t mean through route, I meant loop from the main Glasgow line to join the Dumfries to Carlisle line in the Dumfries direction.

Yes, Mundell did his usual waffle in Edinburgh about no mandate for Indy Ref, threw in stuff about Stubbs appearing before Holyrood on welfare, but I’d say the main thing was to throw this rail spanner at the SNP – and Indy. With the Blue belt at the south of Scotland, anything he can do to cement it, he will.

The main objection to RC schools is that they’re fully state funded. By that I mean every single teaching hour is funded by the state. That wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s a requirement of 10% teaching time be dedicated to religious instruction, at least there was the last time I checked. I have a friend who deliberately skiped the module needed to take RE but still had to teach it. Nothing automatically wrong with bringing children up in your faith. Expecting the rest of us to pay for is taking the piss.

Scotland has 370 state-funded faith schools – 366 Catholic, one Jewish and three Episcopalian. These schools play an important part in education in Scotland. We believe it’s important for parents and pupils to have the choice to attend a faith school, if they want to.”

There’s a bid in for some primary school to become the first state-funded Muslim school.

“O/T Electricityy no longer produced by coal fired power stations in Scotland as of closure of Longannet in March this year.”

Yes, Capella, I know that but last time I looked the national grid serves the entire United Kingdom including Northern Ireland. A grid is rather like the mains electricity in your home.

Power is distributed around the home by a ring-main, (a small scale grid). Electricity, unlike water, does not flow along the pipe and out the far end. Otherwise your home would fill up with electricity. Those sockets on the wall do not run stuff out if left unattended.

The generators just maintain a potential,(voltage), and the appliances draw current, (amps), from the line. The power comes only when the appliance draws current.

In effect all generators are applying that potential so it really doesn’t matter it the Coal fired generators were in France. Matter of fact there is an international grid and these too supply the grid.

My point is that even if Scotland was 100% of the time supplying 100% of the power needed for Scotland the fuel used to maintain the grid potential is grid wide. So if the grid is still using nuclear fuelled generators anywhere on the grid then Scotland is part of the loop, (grid).

If the unionists plus the Greens go ahead with this then the electorate will have the opportunity to take a view on it. In the coming local government elections the electorate will then be in a position to express a view on the actions of the unionists and the Greens.

If the Greens have any sense they will reach an agreement with the SNP to amend the law. If they or Slab are led by the nose by the Tories then I anticipate they will be hit in the ballot box.

This surely has to be Slab’s last stand if they are stupid enough to follow the Tories.

I’m in complete agreement. School is to educate not to teach/preach a religion at a captive audience of very eager little sponges! If parents want their kids to be indoctrinated then go to those places of worship, not in school it’s not for the state to provide this that is completely the parents choice.

I can at least understand the tories’ desperation to demonstrate early that they can cause problems for the SNP government. That, after all is what the Buffalo rider was elected to do. Hence the urgency for an early strike.

But Labour? What on earth do they hope to get out of opposing a very popular law? It would be ill-advised for Kezia to be seen siding with the tories so soon after her recent humiliation at the hands of the electorate. If she wants people to forget people’s concept of Better Together, she should avoid reinforcing it. Labour should be doing everything to oppose the tories and demonstrate the uselessness of Ruth’s promises, rather than trying to fight the SNP again. Not wise, not wise at all.

The LibDems are being propped up by the same tactical yoon votes as the tories, so no big risk to them. Now that the Greens do have some potential influence, they have to start demonstrating smart politics – something they have failed spectacularly to do thus far at Holyrood.

“During the pre-school period and from experiences within their local community, most children will have learned something about other world religions, for example through festivals and celebrations, and teachers will want to build on that knowledge as they gradually introduce learning about other world religions. Depending on the context of the school and its local community, other world religions would normally be taught from P3 onwards.

To provide coherence and appropriate balance in the delivery of Catholic Christianity and other world religions, Church guidance is as follows. Normally learning about aspects of Judaism and Islam would take place from P3 onwards and be further developed in S1 and S2. This will not exclude reference to the beliefs of pupils of other faith traditions represented in the school, but such references should be in response to questions or on the occasion of religious festivals, for example. This means that they are likely to be exceptional. This can widen to learning about Buddhism, Sikhism or Hinduism in the secondary stages with fourth level providing some study options in this regard.”

One of the advantages of state-funding, is that such teaching can be forced to conform to the Curriculum for Excellence – with inspection for conformity

Your party has been done up like a kipper by the blue tories. Please don’t bend over for them over again and fight the SNP, just for the sake of it. The tories will screw you and screw you ad infinitum, unless you stop bending over and doing their dirty work. Do you have a death wish?

If the Scottish government is outvoted, the tories win and you lose (yet again). Stop playing the useful idiots to the tories and start causing them problems, otherwise their status as the official yoon opposition will be permanent. Don’t say you were not told.

@Cherry
Bearing in mind that it’s sectarianism is the problem, not religion itself, isn’t it better the kids at school are taught respect for other religions, rather than be restricted to parents and priests / ministers saying like:

“If you so much as talk to a Proddie / Tim you’ll fry in the eternal flames of damnation“.

I suppose the fact that some Celtic fans are against the act might actually be of some benefit to Rangers fans. Put it this way some pubs have a no colours policy so even though the scarves and strips aren’t by themselves offensive the context they appear in might make them so.

The same might be said of seemingly innocuous songs such as the “Fields of Athen Rye” and “Soldiers Song”. In the context of the Old Firm they become a deliberate provocation. Deliberately winding up knuckle draggers in order to get a violent reaction is still a disturbance of the peace.

I think if harmless songs like the Fields of Athenry or the Irish national anthem produce violent reactions from some on the Rangers side then its the violent Rangers fans who need to be clamped down on, not the singers.

Bearing in mind that it’s sectarianism is the problem, not religion itself,

the usa ra

guns dont kill people, people do.

schools teach re, about 1 hr a week, to teach the kids the basics, thats more than enough.
beyond that, most people manage their lives perfectly well without religion of any kind.
i tolerate religions and their affiliated organisations like the OO, but only to a point.
sectarianism is being relegated to the realms of political incorrectness and it is no longer acceptable for governments to pander to them or fund their activities

Henichen, if it’s yer first post then it’s moderated, your second post will sometimes come through even though askimet hasn’t ‘released’ the first post yet. So yer first post should show up at some point on the thread roughly when you first posted it, I think the Rev has to manually do this, and he’s a very busy man…so dinnae fash…

Brought up a catholic in Scotland sixty years ago, I was taught to respect other religions, Ministers had to be addressed as Sir etc. My prodestant friends were the same, in our village we had several families from the OO these were a different kettle of fish. From OAPs to the children they were a nasty, nasty bunch with the exception of one family .. the only ones who were lodge members

Rev, Different subject. Have you seen ‘The Wee Bleu Book’, produced by the two SNP MEPs (maybe I’m being naive and you were involved, given the title). It’s excellent and needs publicising. It takes a few swipes at how the UK Government interferes with Scottish EU funding.

‘sectarianism is being relegated to the realms of political incorrectness and it is no longer acceptable for governments to pander to them or fund their activities’

Tell that tae the Tories whose entire campaign amounted to little more than a call tae arms for the ‘no surrender’ brigades. The Greens will be finished imo, if they back this when it comes tae the vote. Labour? Whit are they for? They are for being against the SNP whatever the issue and if they too vote for this repeal, then they really are just rolling the coffin into the flames…nae mair nails necessary, it was nailed shut on the 5th May.

My letter to The National:
While I understand that the opposition parties had commitments to repeal the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Act, I think that for many of the people who voted for them this was not a make or break issue, and indeed many of those voters will no doubt support the act in one form or another. Polling carried out on behalf of organisations as far apart as You Gov and Wings over Scotland showed that there was a wide level of support for the act, even within Rangers and Celtic supporters. The idea that the act should be repealed is utterly backwards. In the last four years we have been very lucky in that Celtic and Rangers have not been competing in the same leagues, so the problems which generated the controversy which led to the act being introduced have not been front and centre, but they haven’t gone away. Earlier this year it was reported that Police Scotland were rounding up domestic abusers before the recent cup meeting between the two teams. A 2009 newsletter issued by Greater Glasgow Health Board noted a trebling of Royal Infirmary A&E admissions following one Glasgow derby. The internet remains awash with sectarian bile and bigotry. Earlier this year an Aberdeen fan was sentenced to 200 hours community service and banned from football for his online attack on a disabled Celtic supporter. The reasons for having the OBFA remain.

So for these parties to team up to repeal the act flies in the face of what the public want and what Scotland needs. I think everyone is agreed that the legislation is not the greatest, but it needs fixed, not discarded. Opponents to the legislation bizarrely claim that the act does not convict enough people while simultaneously complaining that convicted people are unfairly criminalised. The Scottish Socialist Party are amongst those opponents who refer to the findings of a study by the University of Stirling as evidence of how wrong the act is, but fail to cite the parts of the act which run counter to their aims, such as the statement that “Eighty-five percent of surveyed fans agreed it was offensive to sing songs or make remarks about people’s religious beliefs or backgrounds and 90 percent agreed it was offensive to celebrate the loss of life”, or that “Reaction from Sheriffs ranged from strongly supportive to emphatically critical, with most in between, whilst Police Scotland felt the act gave them greater clarity on how to act.”
This runs counter to media reports of the police either not applying the legislation properly or being over enthusiastic in their interpretation of the act. Similarly there are sheriffs who have publicly criticised the act. Sheriff Richard Donaldson is often quoted by those anti OBFA campaigners as having described the act as “mince”, as though this gives gravitas to their argument. Sheriff Donaldson was also quoted this year as saying that Scotland’s domestic abuse laws were “way over the top” and an illustration of the Scottish Parliaments fixation on domestic abuse.

Perhaps it is just my imagination, but it seems to me that there are a significant number of people within the workings of the system who wish to see this legislation fail. Well, I for one don’t. If it doesn’t work, fix it. Scrapping the legislation is a rallying call to the bigots to dig out their songbooks and give it laldy, and is a moral victory for those who wish to see Scots divided against each other.

Those opposed to the act offer no solution to the problem, bar the tried, tested and failed method of educating the children. There are elements out there who are vehemently opposed the named person scheme in case it brainwashes children; those same people are hardly going to be enamoured when little Johnny comes home and asks why the teacher says Daddy is a bigot, are they?

The OBFA is but one tool in the fight against bigotry and sectarianism in Scotland, but it fails to go far enough. The police stand back and fail to act as thousands of people sing sectarian songs at the football. They will not pick out anyone and the crowds become emboldened, knowing they are untouchable. The SFA and the SPFL have to be made to take tough action in this regard, and it’s time they stopped mucking around and introduced the compulsory docking of points for sectarian behaviour by the fans. It’s time that the broadcasters faced up to the fact they have a part to play, and silence the mikes when sectarian chanting is taking place. The ultimate sanction is to have the clubs play matches behind closed doors, and perhaps it’s when these kind of actions are taken that the message will start to get through.

These days the leaders of the political parties are more than willing to comment on the most frivolous matters on social media. I asked all the opposition leaders on twitter what they would do to replace the act with something better. They didn’t reply. They are a silent minority trying to impose their will on the silent majority, and it’s time they answered for it.

@cat
Teaching religions – plural – can hardly be classed sectarianism. In fact it would be very difficult to understand much of history, including that happening right now, without any knowledge of religion.

I’d say that as sectarianism as in problems between religions is hopefully reducing, another form of sectarianism is on the increase, and that’s of those that are secular, against those that have religion. And it’s just as nasty, for those that are extreme in it and intolerant.

O/T Does anyone remember the poll that the Herald was running last week? The question was:

‘How would you vote in a second Scottish independence referendum?’

Someone on Twitter has just flagged up that up until Sunday the poll was running at 70% Yes to 30% No, and he’s correct, as I was keeping an eye on it too…but on Sunday it suddenly became 60% No 40% Yes. The poll is now closed and that’s the ‘final’ result.

I had tried to archive it at the time, but it had already been archived, and obviously it would not archive the ‘results’ after I had just voted. Where there was a clear 70% for Yes.

Turns out you can now see for yourself what ‘their’ final result is…here’s the re archived page with those ‘final results’.

Ever get the feeling you’re being completely had? I’m certain that we have been on this occasion. The Herald are a shower of manipulative bastards.

How about empowering the police to stop the match every time these song’s are heard…maybe for 5 min.
And a default goal for the opposite side if they are sung after the final whistle.
The theory being the (I am assuming) majority of fans that are there to enjoy the game will eradicate the behaviour themselves by their dissaprovall.
Also the havoc caused to broadcasting a game would result in the sponsor’s applying pressure too.
Sorry if this is stuipd I know nothing about football.

Of all the abominations associated with UK energy policy, from the prevention of an undersea cable from Scotland to Norway’s pumped storage, to the hindering of tidal supply development, to the counter-free-market connection charges, to the Hinkley Point contracted cost (more than twice that of other EPR installations), to the cancelling of on shore wind subsidies the most outrageous is their pursuit of Off shore Wind generation (with subsidies) when it is the highest cost of any electricity generation process when they have Europe’s best on shore resource in England still barely used when on shore is less than half the cost.

We are talking about over 10p per unit extra cost for off shore, billions of pounds of unnecessary cost for electricity customers which, of course, we in Scotland will pool and share in.

England has to import more than 10% of the electricity it consumes, about half from Scotland and half from France.

However France is going to lose its surplus soon due to a plan to cut its nuclear in half over the next decade.

Actually Heed it wasn’t so much what Ken was saying it was the reams and reams of comments repeatedly saying what he was saying (there’s only so much about planning and Aberdeen that I could ‘listen’ to without glazing over), I’ve no doubt it was better oot than in though, and so humour seemed the best approach from my own pov. The thread became consumed is all.

I voted SNP x2 like a good little cultists. 😉 I would not have split my vote, we fucked them all on the constituency in Glasgow.

I’ve also been of the opinion that PHarvie is all about PHarvie, and found him personally ego driven. He’s all about playing ‘politics’.

I’m not interested in politics per se, I’m only interested in Independence and what it can do for those who have suffered under this sham of a Union. We can sort out the politics on the other side.

I did mistakenly attribute ‘vegetarianism’ to Robin McAlpine in a long tired rant about them all, the day after the vote last week. I wished very much that we had got the majority and this article shows the very reasons why, they (Tories) think they’ve ‘won’ something and if the Greens vote to repeal this and in doing so side with them, all it’s going to do is create further dissonance and generate more bad feeling along party lines within the Indy movement…

Which is exactly what it’s all designed to do.

We all knew it would be like this if we didn’t get the majority. The way I had to quickly come to terms with this was by accepting the reality as fast as possible otherwise quagmires form and it all gets very contentious. When what we really need to be doing is focusing on the Tories and undermining their arguments and policies at every turn, which also happens to be what this article is about too…

The next few weeks in the parly are going to see the lines being drawn, as they attempt to elaborate and capitalise on their manufactured ‘great divide’ narrative, in Scotland, the media will back them to the hilt and we all need to stay focused in the present to get the message out about what these bastards are really about.

If it looks like the Greens are going to play ‘politics’ then we’ll fuckin’ hammer them at the council elections, where I am sure they intend to ‘swell’ their numbers too.

IMO -SNP need to start with a declaration that the bill could
have been written better and appeal for the Westminster based parties to work with them constructively, to improve the law.

Please God that they make reference to all the spade work from the Rev that shows the strength of public opinion on the topic, and the horrific increases in assault and domestic violence, when left unchecked.

I ask the Greens, who have witnessed great strides by the SNP
to protect the environment, to think very carefully about the number of SNP supporters who gave them their second vote.

If they are to stand shoulder to shoulder with the 3 Westminster parties they will become the “Traffic Light Tories”, Red, Amber and Green, to back up the extreme Right Wing Blue Tories, the party of Austerity, Greed and of £pounds befor people.

Think on Mr Harvey!

PS Didn’t Labour assure us that the largest party gets to form the government?

Wee Ruthie Krankie needs to recognise that the Tories only got
36.9% of the votes in the general election, and as such she declares that they have a mandate to impose anything that they like.
SNP has over 46% of the votes in the Holyrood Elections, a more substantial democratic right to impose their will in line with their own manifesto.

@ heedtrackerIf that Green vote does repeal OBFA, will you still vote Green Capella?

I have never voted Green. I’m an SNP member and voted SNP x 2. But it’s not hard to find their manifesto online at their Scottish Greens site. It says:

“Scottish Greens believe that the Offensive Behaviour in Football Act (2012) unnecessarily restricts freedom of expression and is not the most effective means of addressing these concerns. We support the repeal of the Act and instead would support fans to take action against sectarianism in their own clubs through fan ownership.”

Personally I don’t think it is a great restriction on free speech. Nor do you need to repeal it in order to encourage fans to own clubs.
A false dichotomy!

60% is a breakthrough too. UK renewable energy’s probably in the same right/left and big corporate lobby money.

How can say a 80% land locked and pretty flat high energy burning heavy industry nation like Germany, now be almost completely green? UK consensus and orthodoxy is that there must be a mix, coal, oil, nukes, green. One of the drivers behind TATA pulling out of the UK was the green subsidy add on costs that make UK steel uneconomic.

We’re lied to and bullshitted on a UKOK industrial scale but countries like Germany are pretty stark evidence of green reality.

Head tracker
Patrick Harvey is a little man, so his new found hatred of the, stop sectarian singing you bigoted bastards act , to give it its proper title, is just a manifestation of that syndrome.

Or maybe he thinks being green makes him part of the green brigade, you know the bigoted arse wipes who sing pro ira songs and who support a club run by a Lord who was the political head of the British army?

So the greens love the planet, and a good bit of bigotry as well, I think on their argument should we remove rape from the statute books, after all 90% of all victims will never see their attacker even arrested, never mind convicted. What about that for green politics?

@Capella, @H&S
It was me in the other thread suggested to Ken500 that instead of a long post about greens, he just use a hashtag like the one he uses #(non)Greensbad instead to show his disgust at Greens, and being a very obliging sort of person, he is. Thanks Ken.

No, it can’t. We’re up against the Unionist Dross who have nothing left but petty point-scoring and vindictive obstruction. What constructive and progressive measures have they to bring forward to the legislative process in the SP?

This position by the greens “freedom of speech” forgets the singing of sectarian songs is already an offence in common law, are they proposing to make a law allowing sectarian, or any other type of offensive behaviour legal, what about waving a swastika outside a synagogue? After all it’s the very height of freedom of speech? And what is this if the fans own the club they stop becoming bigoted? That’s just stupid!

The herald is suffering from the law of diminishing returns- a couple of years ago this kind of thing would maybe have an effect but they are now completely discredited. The entire Scottish print media is broken. It is no longer fit for purpose.

I suspect the whole game is supported by coffee shops and barbour shops owned by people who buy newspapers for customers rather than read them.

What we are missing big time is a truly impartial proper news provider and maybe some on-line news service where editorial impartiality is at the very core could succeed.

Anyway… back on top for what its worth i punted my emails out tonight to the lothian list. I hope someone is listening:

Dear Kezia Dugdale,

As one of my representatives in Holyrood I wanted to contact you to
express my alarm and concern at the reckless proposal to abolish the
Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications
(Scotland) Act 2012.

Violence and threatening behaviour before, during and after football
matches have been a constant for most of my life. This law was passed
to try and combat the particular problem Scotland has with aggressive
behaviour at football matches and in particular at and around Ibrox and
Parkhead.

The police need our support in combating sectarian violence and
unacceptable behaviour surrounding football. They do not need the
repeal of a law that will give out a completely counter-productive
message.

If the law can be improved then please put forward proposals to improve
it. Polling in Scotland suggests the act has the overwhelming support
of the Scottish people our politicians are in parliament to represent.
Indeed- I have yet to hear a coherent argument to repeal the act other
than it being ‘bad law’ which for a laymen is a completely nonsensical
term.

Whether it is “bad law” does not interest me- I have worked in
Bridgeton Cross in Glasgow and I know the poisonous effects of the
kinds of sectarian rubbish the repeal of this act will enable.

If the repeal of this act goes through and as a result sectarian
violence and aggression increases the opposition parties will not be
forgiven by the public.

Politicians voting to repeal this law will need to take their share of
the blame for any increase in offensive behaviour surrounding football.

So as my representative in Holyrood I ask you to think carefully as to
whether repealing this piece of law rather than reforming it is serving
the best interests of the people of Scotland or is simply acting to
give the Scottish Government a bloody nose.

It is early in the parliament for the spirit of cooperation so
essential for minority government to succeed to be cast aside by
opposition parties. We need to be moving forward and consigning the
spectre of sectarianism to the history books rather than giving it a
new lease of life which is what I fear this action will do.

As someone who has worked on Leith Walk for almost 20 years I see
social problems every day- I just can’t believe that the freedom to
sing The Billy Boys or IRA songs or whatever nonesense is considered
the priority for our parliamentarians.

Thank you for your time and I wish you well for the new parliamentary
term.

I agree that being taught within a curriculum about different religions is right, but in my opinion schools of faith are teaching that their faith is the true faith. That is not acceptable.

My daughter went to Glasgow University she became a teacher getting her degree with honours, she applied to many faith schools in Scotland and was turned down as she was ‘ not of the right religion ‘ She left Scotland and got a teaching post in Cairo.
She was head hunted twice while there which shows that her skills were appreciated in a foreign land.

She is now in London, where she is highly regarded by the school and parents. Scotland lost a great teacher because of religious school rules.
Time Scotland had schools without a religious foundation. Separating children into different schools because of faith is just continuing a system that breeds bigotry…Time for a better way.

@ K1 at 8:03pm … The Herald nobbling the poll …. ‘How would you vote in a second Scottish independence referendum?’

Was 70% Yes – 30% No. Now 60% No and 40% Yes.

Well I hope this gets fired all over the Internet. The Daily Record is another rag that often altered the polling figures at the last minute or the poll would just disappear altogether if it favoured Yes. The upside is that they KNOW full well (and it must be worrying them) that Independence isn’t going to go away any time soon. Tick tock.

@ yesindyref2 says at 6:30 pm …. “ How many denominational schools are there? Scotland has 370 state-funded faith schools – 366 Catholic, one Jewish and three Episcopalian …….. There’s a bid in for some primary school to become the first state-funded Muslim school.”

I wonder if that’s Annette Street Primary School in Govanhill, Glasgow? Of 222 pupils not one child comes from a white, Scottish family. No indigenous Scottish children attend the school (where are they?). The vast majority of the pupils parents come from Romania, Slovakia and Pakistan: three parents have English as their first language. The children are taught by teachers from Scotland, England, Europe and Pakistan.

Personally I think that we should have moved on in Scotland decades ago. All children regardless of background / religion should go to the local schools: Primary and Secondary. If any parents were keen on their particular religion being taught their children could attend classes after school or at the weekend. This would have eliminated or at least reduced sectarian behaviour to some extent. Now we have schools (one school?) with a real mix of children from different ethnic backgrounds who clearly practise different faiths.

Petra,
We can’t move on when all the little bigoted bald fat men have is their little flags and little songs to make them the pretence of feeling superior, which sadly is the only thing that achieves this in their reached little life’s,
Why Patrick Harvey would drag his party into this sorry debacle is beyond me, perhaps it’s wee man syndrome? I know politics can be the dirtiest game on the planet, but you would think the greens would have bigger fish to fry?

Petra,
We can’t move on when all the little bigoted bald fat men have is their little flags and little songs to give them the pretence of feeling superior, which sadly is the only thing that achieves that in their wrenched little life’s,
Why Patrick Harvey would drag his party into this sorry debacle is beyond me, perhaps it’s wee man syndrome? I know politics can be the dirtiest game on the planet, but you would think the greens would have bigger fish to fry?

@ Effijy says at 8:49 pm …. ” ….. Wee Ruthie Krankie needs to recognise that the Tories only got 36.9% of the votes in the general election, and as such she declares that they have a mandate to impose anything that they like. SNP has over 46% of the votes in the Holyrood Elections, a more substantial democratic right to impose their will in line with their own manifesto.”

Effijy I came across an article by Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp in The National (Independence was only held up by ballot’s result) whereby he says ”It’s worth noting that the SNP on 46.5 per cent of the constituencies seem to have recorded a higher vote share than ANY other current European Government.”

”If they (Greens) are to stand shoulder to shoulder with the 3 Westminster parties they will become the “Traffic Light Tories”, Red, Amber and Green, to back up the extreme Right Wing Blue Tories, the party of Austerity, Greed and of £pounds before people.”

This latest move by the unionist coalition to undermine the SG and Scottish society by repealing this act is demonstrative of their complete absence of morality or care for our people.

The act may be weak and imperfect, but remember why it was introduced: in the last twenty years there were up to a dozen murders clearly linked to sectarian motives..almost entirely in the aftermath of ‘Old Firm’ games.

In more recent times Neil Lennon, the Celtic Manager, was vilified by the Scottish media in a clear racist way.. incitement to hatred with ugly images of him snarling or otherwise baring his teeth in confrontation…Northern Irish, Catholic and red haired..grist to the sectarian mill.

Remind yourself that he was badly beaten on several occasions…once attacked on live tv at a match at Tynecastle by a Hearts thug…who then was found not guilty by an east coast jury…so much for sectarianism being a west coast phenomenon.

I’ve been a football fan for a very long time and sectarianism has existed and been tolerated for far too long in this country. As Dave McEwan Hill rightly points out RC Schools were brought in to protect Catholics from the rampant discrimination being exerted against them with the active encouragement of the Church of Scotland.

Yes both sides of the Glasgow divide have been guilty of the major acts of hate, but there are minorities with many other Scottish clubs, such as Hearts, Airdrie, Dundee, Falkirk etc, who ‘couldnae afford the bus ticket’ to the Old Firm who can be relied on to turn up with their Union Jacks..Celtic and possibly Hibs have the tricolour and sing the same crap. Worryingly, I’ve noticed Union jacks at Aberdeen and Dundee United (D.U. Loyal?)..making me wonder if there is a ‘black flag’ deal going on.

One club…new or re-invented..that stands alone in its ‘disloyalty’ to Scotland and its active stance against Scottish Independence. A club that took every opportunity to state publicly its ‘NO’ stance during the Referendum campaign. A club whose adherents were happy to allow themselves to be organised by the same ‘black flag’ agents to carry out an organised attack on YES supporters on the 19th of September in George Square. Their chums in the East end had the same shadowy figures trying to agitate the ‘green Brigade’ …without a lot of success, other than to increase the paranoia associated with some Celtic fans.

This club…which had a ‘Troops day’ and was allowed to permit servicemen and fans perform the ‘bouncy’…a Loyalist related ‘celebration’..is now back in the Premier league and only a fool or a conniving Unionist politician can claim that assaults and murders will not result from the old enmities being resumed.

Anyone who is not a bigot,doesn’t behave like a bigot or sides with bigotry. Should have no problem with the law as is. If you are reading this and want the law repealed. You need to look in the mirror and work out why bigotry is acceptable to you.

The majority of people are not bigoted neanderthals and we elected the SNP, to protect the majority from the minority.

Nobody but nobody here can accuse me of anti-Rangers prejudice. Not when my great, great, great grandfather fought and died on the banks of the Boyne. My great, great uncle died at the Alamo. On my mother’s side two great uncles died at the battle of little big horn on the same day, one on each side.

And if you still doubt my credentials, my grandfather died at a bridge too far in Arnhem and my mum and dad met whilst they were POWs working on the River Kwai. Both were murdered by Zulu savages not long after giving birth to myself in Swaliland where I was subsequently raised by the Sarmoung Brotherhood.

I think I’ve earned the right to be heard on this sectarian stuff. And it’s my view that liquidation does in fact mean death. Our glorious history is gone.

The agenda for the next 5 years is set. Opposition parties in Holyrood intend to pursue what they perceive to be “Popularism” policies, often in support of vociferous minorities regardless of the wishes of the wider electorate. Politically wise Scots voters have long memories and will exact their revenge at the ballot box

Andrew MClean & Petra
Yes integrate the schools and bigotry/sectarianism would dissapear in a generation.
But will point out that it’s no jist the boweler hat brigade that campaign fur the “separate” schooling.
A Cumbernauld R.C. headmaster proudly left his post to campaign for the “right” to educate separately when shared campuses were suggested.
Believe it or not one of the “concern’s” was there should be separate Staff Rooms included with separate entrances ect!!!!!!!
Not the Scotland I want too see.

Sectarianism is an evil blight that has infected parts of Scotland for far too long, and you have to marvel at the naked political opportunism of the opposition parties (including the Greens, FFS) who apparently all feel that repeal of this well-intentioned law is their most essential first act in the new parliament. Some sense of priority, that!

How many times must the others band together with the toxic Tories over vile policies and remind us of their collaboration in BT, before any of them finally wise up that they are merely succeeding in wrecking their own reputations?

The Greens may be politically naive, so would be well advised to avoid keeping the company of that malevolent bunch.

Interesting watching the Blockers trying not to say out loud, air transport duty for my Scotland region, is going to stay the same as now to stop an increase of flights to and from my Scotland region and that’s good for the Scotland region environment because I am Green and have lots of power in Holyrood now.

Why not just closed down all Scottish airports Greens?

You have to go to Heathrow or Gatwick anyway, to go anywhere further than Dundee. We could all just cycle down to Heathrow, lock the bike and hop on our business class red to NY NY.

Yesindyrefwhatever, of course it was a racist point. What has skin colour got to do with religion and faith? Answers on a post card.

And I don’t understand the purpose of the link to youtube showing kids at some sort of school show singing some Romanian song. The school looked very normal and orderly to me; what was the point being made by linking to that here?

I attended what you would call a non-denominational or non-faith school in Glasgow. We had Christianity shoved down our throats at every opportunity.

That’s racism, pure and simple. We weren’t even discussing race or skin colour, we were discussing religion, faith, and sectarianism. There was no cause to introduce skin colour as an ingredient.”

I was responding to another posters comment on schooling AM and I’m not racist. Far from it. You know absolutely nothing about me, who I know, who I’m related to or what I do. I was quoting FACTS from a newspaper and highlighting the situation that is facing us …. more so the children in question taking into account that they do suffer from racist verbal and physical attacks often linked to their RELIGION rather than their skin colour. Pointing out that life would be far easier all-round if everyone attended the same local school from day one.

You’ve actually introduced the ‘racist’ card AM, not me, and who’s to say that no one is allowed to mention the colour of someones skin, in a benign way as far as I’m concerned, on here? You?

The issue with the Herald poll was it was so obviously manipulated at the end to suit the Heralds agenda. Like others I watched it hover around the Yes 70 – No 30 mark (at one point at the start Yes was about 75%).

To think that a grown up person decided to change the results to No 60% and Yes 40% as though no-one would ever notice..

It is this idiotic behaviour from what was once, dare I say it.. “A proud Scottish Newspaper”. that is so, so sad.

I wish the “Bunty” was still in production, it would put the recent childish efforts of the Herald to shame. Plus you sometimes got a free ring to cherish.

@ AhuraMazda says at 10:46 pm …. ”Yesindyrefwhatever, of course it was a racist point. What has skin colour got to do with religion and faith? Answers on a post card.

And I don’t understand the purpose of the link to youtube showing kids at some sort of school show singing some Romanian song. The school looked very normal and orderly to me; what was the point being made by linking to that here?

I attended what you would call a non-denominational or non-faith school in Glasgow. We had Christianity shoved down our throats at every opportunity.

OBFA not something that I can get too excited about. If I didn’t read Wings then I doubt I would know that such a law existed and was passed by the SNP in 2012.

I do agree that sectarianism was and still is a problem, though since it is mainly confined to football and a very small minority of supporters it has never been something that I would put near the top of my list of issues to tackle at the start of a new parliamentary session.

No, the truth is that for the Unionist parties and by all accounts the Greens believe this is an issue demanding their utmost attention is bizarre, the real reason obviously being is in the hope of giving the SNP a wee skelp on the bum. Wouldn’t be a very good start IMO for the Greens.

If the Greens actually support the Tories in order to repeal this bill rather than improve it then they will deserve all the pelters that will come their way.

They haven’t yet voted for repealing the bill, I’m willing to wait and see what the reality is. I think if Patrick Harvie chooses to hang his hat on this particular peg then it will be a great blunder with the only winners the Tories and the bigots. Let’s wait and see

Petra, you still haven’t explained what skin colour has to do with a discussion on faith and religion.

You were the one that introduced the subject of skin colour: you made the point that of 222 pupils not one was from a “white, Scottish family”. Your words.

Is your concern faith or skin colour? You were right when you said I know nothing about you. I’m simply asking you to explain what you said without any preconceived ideas about you.

The point I was making about so called non-denominational schools is that they are very denominational. That was my experience. They shove their Christian values down throats at every opportunity. I have no axe to grind about that, nobody is asked to believe or disbelieve, it’s just a fact. I can only imagine what the muslims at my school thought, and there was plenty of them, because they were subject to that non-denominational treatment too.

I can see there is a sort of groundswell of support for shutting down faith schools in here. On that basis we’d be shutting down every school in Scotland. I can only assume that when they say shut down faith schools they really mean RC schools.

I would not be too surprised if there is a wee chat with the greens about setting up an ‘ambush’ on this issue. Instead of repealing the Act, the greens put amendments which the SG will agree to support instead.

Unionist smell early ‘defeat’ of SNP, only to be outvoted/outsmarted by the SNP and Greens, how fuckin great would THAT be !!

This could then be used as a warning to the yoons NOT to waste time trying to grandstand in future.

I like to think the Greens are smart enough to know which party to work with for the next five years.

Could be interesting.
Could also be hilarious, since Kelly and his tory chums think this is a sure fire defeat for the SNP government.

For months now, Baxters soups have been available for 50p a tin in Poundstretcher – recently, Home Bargains and B&M Bargains have matched that price.

Tesco, who usually price Baxters soups at £1.10, have also, recently, been doing them at “4 for £3” or more recently (along with Asda), 50p a can.

I like Baxters soups, particularly the Cock-a-leekie – but there’s no way a tin of soup should cost more than 50/60p. I have a nice stock, bought at discounted prices – the French Onion is rather good also.

Ahrura..M
Naw not just RC schools…. All of them.
Education is Education.
Wit on earth makes you think there are only Catholic /Non Dom
School’s.
The best way forward as, I am sure you will agree is that Education should be Universal…,.Therefore not influnced by…or controlled by….any one group.
But rather by the consensus of the parent’s… AKA It takes a village.

Very long vote Brexit stuff and above all else, vote out to stop Scottish independence,

“Now the SNP are at their weakest. The Scottish economy is in trouble and dependent on UK subsidy. The condition for the possibility of Scottish independence is UK membership of the EU. Destroy the Scottish nationalist dream before it turns into our nightmare.”

Just watched really awful Newsnight Brexit debate, as usual with no Scots voice whatsoever. Another very big deal some proud Scot buts think we cannot decide for ourselves.

“SNP husband and wife Stewart Hosie and Shona Robison separate”.
…
This cannot be true.
We are continually told that the uk, by a large majority, said NO to separation !
…
No offence to anyone intended. ?

What’s been going on at Westminster? Hosie and MacNeil chasing after the same woman …. Serena Cowdy…. the mind boggles.

Serena Cowdy calling them romantic revolutionaries ‘the Mujahideen of British politicians.’ I doubt Mrs Hosie and Mrs MacNeil will agree with that.

‘Mujahideen is the plural form of mujahid, the term for one engaged in Jihad. In English usage, it mostly referred to the guerrilla type military outfits led by the Muslim Afghan warriors in the Soviet war in Afghanistan, but now it often refers to other jihadist outfits in various countries Wikipedia.’.

God I’ve heard it all now. Ulsterisation in the North and Mujahideenation (no such word) in the South.

”As a journalist at Westminster, she is a keen observer of political gossip, intrigue and in-fighting.”

Sounds as though she’s behind most of it.

”She has admitted to engineering ‘chance’ meetings with men she wants relationships with. She even joked about being a ‘stalker’.”

Well that’s that. Looks as though Stuart Hosie is onto a loser there.

Commiserations to the two wives and well maybe the two husbands too.

I wonder which Unionist MSP will attempt to dredge this up first …. Rennie?

Liz G, you seem to totally miss a very basic point that I made 2 or 3 times. I don’t know how I can make it any simpler but let’s try.

The general feeling in here seems to be that we should close down all faith schools. If the 366 out of 370 faith schools are RC schools, closing down faith schools basically amounts to a declaration of war on RC schools and Catholics.

That being the case, I’m suggesting that you take a closer look at what you might call non-faith schools. In my experience these schools have a high degree of faith in them too, so why not shut them down? It seems that there’s bias here, with our faith schools being deemed good and healthy and catholic faith schools being earmarked for attacks.

If you are serious about getting faith out of schools do it, but if you don’t do it properly and honestly you are just attacking RC schools. The non-denomination school I went to was a faith school too in my opinion but nobody seems to notice that or want to admit it. It’s just a very typical example of blind bias and prejudice.

This article has taken me out of early hibernation .. SO FKD OFF WITH THE ESTABLISHMENT TRYING TO TURN SCOTLAND INTO A DIVIDED IRISH (bubble & squeak Sunday lunch pint)three thousand year history lesson that has fuck all to do with present day Scots in the 21st Century, battling the Westmonster Pig Cock establishment called the MeanStreamMotherfks.

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON ? ARE WE NOT ALL Scotland’s Children ? Divide and Rule ! Have We Not Learned that together we as Scots are fkg impregnable

?m?pr??n?b(?)l/
adjective
adjective: impregnable (of a fortified position) unable to be captured or broken into ?

“No-one knows anything about economics in the short term. Almost no-one predicted the 2008 economic crisis. We cannot predict what will happen to the UK economy in the next twelve months let alone the next twenty years. The future has not happened yet. What happens depends on things we cannot control, but also to an extent on the choices that we make.”

The fact that she then goes on to make predictions about the economy and political situation well down the line seems lost on Eff. I’m like banging the table laughing at this point. Have I entered the fookin twighlight zone or what! For a yoon to assert now that one cannot predict even the short term economic future!

Another belter:

“Despite all the scare stories it remains the case that leaving the EU would be relatively straightforward for the UK…. the thing that makes Brexit relatively straightforward is that the UK already is a nation state.”

Taking out a credit card is relatively straightforward. Setting up netflix is relatively straightforward.

Something that has never happened before that folk are guessing could take between 2 years and 10 years, that involves legal processes almost nobody understands and involves changes to everything from nationality to trading standards via trade agreements and human rights- the one word I am amazed to see someone use as a description is “straightforward”.

If that is “straightforward” what could possibly be complicated? I think we all know the answer to that!

I also enjoy the text message style of writing, where phrases normally separated by punctuation are relieved of the conventions of grammar.

The contortions on display are delicious when unionist turns nationalist. When one hears the ‘sovereignty’ argument I cannot help grinning from ear to ear.

@ Dr Jim says at 11:57 pm …. ”Hooray and Hurrah. The Scottish government are going to stand firm on the bill and make the opposition vote it down. And now the opposition are shitting themselves because they will look exactly like the opportunists they are, plus of course supporting sectarianism. I claim my £5.00 prize for predictions. Unless something changes by tomorrow and I look stupid then I’ll have to give it back.”

Where did you hear about that Dr Jim? Sounds interesting. Sounds just like a Nicola move in fact. They should never underestimate her.

Did anyone catch a Police Scotland SNPBad story doing the rounds this evening?

Had Heart FM on in the car, yeah I know it’s a terrible Global Radio corporate station, but the kids lap up the godawful music. They’re not quite at the age where decent music interests them – I have to work on that – they like Bowie and The Kinks so far.

But I digress. The kids were dropped off, I’m driving alone and the news came on. Mundell had me cursing but worse was to follow.

An “exclusive” – Police Scotland “owe” our hard-working bobbies over a Hundred Years of lost days off, holidays etc, taken off them due to short-notice urgent cover. A “Scandal”, “look at the shambles the service is in since the SNP made it into one force” story.

To cap it off, they had the obligatory soundbite from concerned Yoon MSP, you guessed it – Willie bloody Rennie! The air in the car was blue by then.

Jeezo this is a ‘must read’ with a wee quote from Wings. Sounds like a hypocritical, non-insightful madwoman.

”…. The scare stories from our opponents amount to the claim that the UK cannot revert to being a country like Australia. In the end what’s scary about being like Australia? Nothing at all.

The thing that makes Brexit relatively straightforward is that the UK already is a nation state. The arguments that were used in the Scottish independence referendum against Scottish nationalism simply do not apply. Guess what if the UK leaves the EU we get to keep the pound….

The only way the Eurozone countries can gain political union is if the majority can overrule the minority…..

… Whatever guarantees are made turn out to be worthless a few years down the line. What’s more there will be nothing we can do, because we will be outvoted. If we choose to remain in the EU, we choose to make our laws and our parliament subordinate….

What they fear is that the UK shows that there is life outside the EU and indeed that it is better….

It’s hard to imagine a UK government being pleased at being outvoted. It’s equally hard to imagine the British people being grateful that we have to do things we don’t want to do for the sake of European unity….

But it’s vital to realise that leaving the EU makes Scottish independence must harder to realise. If you don’t believe me then perhaps you will believe this from the site Wings over Scotland….

Will Scots really prefer to join a United States of Europe, where they will actually have no more independence than Texas? The Scottish parliament in those circumstances would lose power rather than gain it…

If Scotland were in Schengen, while the UK was outside the EU, it’s hard to imagine that we could maintain an open border. If there were an open border between Gretna and Berwick then anyone who got into the EU would immediately be able to go to London. But it would be precisely to stop this that the UK left the EU in the first place. (Ha, ha, ha)

The failure last week of the SNP to win a majority in the Scottish parliament gives us a chance to kick Scottish nationalism in the teeth. They have had a setback we can turn it into a rout. The main reason why I support Brexit is that it makes Scottish independence so heavy that it becomes a dead issue. We will face challenges if we vote to leave the EU, but we will face them together and that will unite our country as such challenges always have. It may be the only thing that will bring back our unity….

Destroy the Scottish nationalist dream before it turns into our nightmare.

I support this legislation. Those who enjoy getting tanked up and get their joys singing about being up to their knees if feinian or proddy blood for that mater can go and fuck themselves. I don’t care who I offend on that.

I remember having to go to hospital to give blood because my brother got stabbed after a certain football match.

No, not at all. I have looked at that in some detail. Unlike England where there is virtually no On shore wind generation in the Home Counties, Brandenburg, the German State within which their capital, Berlin, is encapsulated, has higher On shore wind generation per capita than the German average.

The degree to which English nimbyism, particularly South Eastern English nimbyism for On shore wind has been accommodated is a source of bewilderment to other European Western seaboard countries.

One major wind turbine supplier went to large expense to set up an On shore wind turbine plant on the Isle of Wight in justifiable expectation of orders. When those were not forthcoming they had to close the plant and the CEO said “It is like a Saudi Arabia that refuses to drill for oil”.

The Germans would rip your arm off if you offered them the On shore potential England has.

But even Germany, where Green political presence is more than any other European country, has reigned back on their planned Off shore deployment in favour of Solar even after ‘filling up’ their On shore potential because of the rising costs of Off shore.

Yet England, not having used its On shore to anything like the level exploited by other Western European countries, has the biggest Off shore wind generation project in the World.

Let me repeat Off shore wind is the most costly method of generating electricity whereas On shore is the cheapest except for geothermal (Iceland).

They both use turbines but are at opposite ends of the electricity production cost spectrum.

The madness is compounded by the UK Government continuing with Off shore subsidies while halting those for On shore.

Note that the logic of those subsidies, i.e. enabling electricity generation far removed from the centres of population in the SE is the exact opposite from their justification for higher grid connection charges in Scotland.

It all amounts to a huge electricity tax to accomodate SE nimbyism which we will all have to pool and share even if you live in Scotland which is producing cheap On shore.

Some time ago, a law was passed banning smoking in enclosed public places.

With regard to football anti-social behaviour & the inability or unconcern that the footballing authorities appear to portray, the bull must be taken” by the horns”. Call for an act of law that makes the clubs responsible for the behaviour of their so called fans. After all, these grounds are “public access” & are licensed as such. If a threat to the public is perceived, these premises should be “no access”. Yes, let the games go ahead but behind closed doors. The clubs, & the SFA, will soon be brought to heel when the pennies stop rolling in. It’s known as facing up to your responsibilities.
Then, perhaps genuine fans can attend in safety & enjoy their day out without looking over their shoulder all the time.
Why the Unionist parties are objecting is beyond my comprehension. That thrown out but in by the back door Slab Glasgow MSP with the insipid voice, I forget his name, who intends to rectify things, comes up with some scheme that maybe social workers go round all the doors of known football supporters & ask them to be nice. I thought you had to be intelligent to get onto parliament – & he gets paid too!
Why don’t the Unionists go the whole hog & get rid of segregation in the grounds, sell alcohol, etc. & take us back to the “good old days”, flying bottles, being pissed upon, being verbally & physically assaulted. Can’t wait – no.
The elected representitives, which ever party, is in place to look after the interests those who put them there, not the, well, sub-humans, who, because of their inability to conform to basic society, appear to get all the attention.

Except Petra was not being racist but was pointing out that multi faith , multi denominational and culturally diverse schools can be achieved with a bit of work and respect on all sides. But you knew that.
Perhaps your next name should be Eastcoast Haar

Germany is different it has federalism. A strong stable gov and is not up to it’s eyes in debt. The Greens there are truly Green, along with the population. Not an unpopular minority (non) Green pressure group who would do cheat and lie to muck up the economy and waste £MillionsBillions of public money. Destroying their own Party. They really are a movement for democracy and self improvement.

Murdo Fraser on his Radio show, BBC Radio Scotland, couldn’t wait to get this repealed, saying the fans should sing their songs, and we know what songs they are, he supports bigotry and hate, its divide and rule.

Fekkin eejjit.

I want to take my 12 year old son to the Montrose games for an enjoyable day out and getting behind our team, without hearing about some murdering gayblade on a horse back in the 17th century, we dont have an sectarianism in Montrose, we dont want it here.
All Hail the Mighty DynaMo

The U.K. gov is a total disaster, on fuel & energy, taxation, public and social service. U turn after U turn. Just a bunch of incompetent amateurs. They have damaged the Scottish//UK economy. Yet their policies have been totally rejected in Scotland time after time. The sooner Scotland has FFA/Independence the better. It is not the EU that is the problem it is Westminster Gov damaging the whole of the EU economy. The Tories have not protected the NHS or cut the debt. They are embezzling tax payers money and lining the pockets of their associates.The only reason the Tory/Unionists are in government or join political Parties. To dupe the public and raised the public purse. They are complete crooks who do not enforce the Law but break it with impunity. They sanction and starve the vulnerable to death.

The UK Gov has bankrupted Britain. Causing Europe £Billions of expense which could have been better spent. Westminster helped causing the worst recession. UK/US/France have caused the worse migration crisis in Europe since 11WW, causing poverty, hardship and death. They are like a plague on others and damage the world economy. Westminster tries to keep it secret under the Official Secrets Act and control of the Media and the MSM Press.

“Except Petra was not being racist but was pointing out that multi faith , multi denominational and culturally diverse schools can be achieved with a bit of work and respect on all sides. “

Except, Auld Sandy & Petra you are both totally ignorant of the real legal situation in regard to faith Schools.

They are all already legally, “multi faith , multi denominational and culturally diverse”, and have been so for a very long time. Which state, “Faith” schools, by the way, include far more than just RC schools.

First there was very good historic reason for there being RC schools in the first place. The Catholics were being massively discriminated against.

In the second place these RC schools were built by the Catholic Church at their own expense. At that time the, so called, non-denominational schools were actually Protestant Faith schools and financed under the old, “Parish System”. There really were no other religions involved except for very tiny minorities.

Then there was a state movement to bring all Parish controlled and provided schools under direct government control.

To that end the Parishes, both Protestant & Catholic Schools were funded nationally. That means the Catholic Schools were brought under national control by agreement but the RC parish churches were not recompensed for their investment in building schools. In effect the RC parish still owned the actual buildings, teachers and equipment.

The agreement was that the state began to equally fund all schools and the RC schools would continue as faith schools under the state system. But here’s the thing. Neither Protestant/non-dom nor Catholic schools could legally prevent other faith pupils choosing to attend them.

Got that?

There is been no actual legal bar to anyone, of any faith, attending any state school and all RC schools have long been part of the state school system. Furthermore, no state school can legally enforce any pupil to attend any religious instructions. It is entirely voluntary.

If a parent sends a child to a so called Catholic School they can opt for their child to NOT attend religious education classes. In many places parents do indeed opt for the local RC school if it is the best local school.

I’m 80 next birthday and I attended whatever school was closer to my home way back in the 1940s. I never found any teacher, in either RC or Non-Dom schools, who attempted to be sectarian.

Yet there was always pupils who did so. In other words they did not learn to be sectarian in the local school. They arrived in school as infants already dyed in the wool wee Billies and wee Tims.

It is the sectarian families from both Christian sects who bring up their children as bigots. That and the children’s chosen peers.

Don’t take my word for it – check out the legal facts. No state school can refuse to enrol any pupil on religious grounds. There cannot thus actually be such a thing as an actual one faith school for religious education is stricktly voluntary.

Suspect the Greens will decide to allow the law to remain for another year and argue against it continuing in its present form. As has been noted already the circumstances necessitating the law have been less frequent since it was introduced.

I doubt any party not wanting to appear opportunistic would be as foolish as to repeal a law a year before it times out when it’s not been fully tested. If things are as bad as they were before then the law is pointless. If it’s not renewed at least there’s a comparison to be made. Might even be a draw where the SNP claim it served its purpose and the opposition claim it did nothing.

Personally I’d remove references to sectarianism entirely as being superfluous and restrictive as far as the scope of the law goes. It should apply regardless of the the particular religious, political or racial overtones.

The Unionist Football clubs are destroying themselves. Just the same as they have destroyed their political Parties, by cheating, lying and corruption. Duping the punters and the general public. Total 2nd rate rejects.

2019 looks like the year they will go out of business, Thry have been evading taxes and defrauding the people including their own supporters. They are £Millions in debt embezzling from the public purse and it is going to destroy the Club and Unionists political Parties associating with it. Including the Labour Party. It’s an absolute scandal.

2019 the UK Gov/HMRC are going to come looking for it’s required payments. The Club, the Unionist Parties and the corrupt retainers will be destroy. The fraud, bigotry and corruption will be wiped out. The Club will lose all the trophies. No more ‘Land and Hope and Glory’. Just a gory mess. They are going to be wiped out. The majority are sick of them. They will try to destroy the Offensive Football Act but it will destroy them. The people are going to reclaim the streets. The SNP are going to retain their seats and more.

May 2017 is the start. FFA/Independence just gets even closer. The Unionists are self destructing . It couldn’t happen too soon, to such bunch of 2nd rate rejects. Thieves and murderers. The (non) Greens will pay for their duplicity and lies. They are destroying their own small pressure Group with their corruption, lies and total amateur incompetence. #(non)Greensbad.

Independence is coming even faster along the line. Choo Choo. Jump on the Independence train to a better, more equal fairer society. Anyone can come on board the Independence Express for prosperity and happiness. It’s all to play for. Game on. Thanks Rev Stu once again. The most popular gamester ever,

One thing to make clear on wind power is that Scotland, without those subsea cables to Norway, is very overexposed to on shore wind generation.

With access to Norway’s pumped storage and to alternative customers we are at England’s beck and call and would be after independence until such links are developed.

The first Scottish Government administration began negotiations with the Norwegians for a subsea cable, both sides seeing the engineering advantages but Westminster stepped in to stop it, threatening diplomatic action if needs be.

The Catholics were not being discriminated against under Scottish Law. They have right’s and privileges above the Law to accommodate them -separate school etc as do all religions. Churches in Scotland have rights above the Law – the equal opportunity Employment Laws etc. This discriminates against others. Scotland is a very tolerant society.

There should be no sectarian Laws in a secular country. Instead of stamping sectarianism out the Unionists in Scotland have tolerated and encouraged it because it suited their purpose. Divide and rule and gain the spoils. pit one side against each other. It has destroyed the economy but lined their greedy pockets.

Sectarianism could gave been wiped out with a few equal measures, Ban Orange Marches every week in Glasgow. Unbelievable that has been allowed to carry on. A total waste of public money and destroying the local economy. Schools should be a shared campus. That is coming anyway.

The Churches are losing members faster than a sieve loses water, some because of sectarianism and bigotry and the problems that it causes. The fall in numbers/rolls will result in not enough pupils to justify separate schools. The separation of religion and the State, of which so many democracies are based. Religion should be a tolerated private personal matter not become a public problem.

Great division is not a power for good. Illegal and destructive too. The SNP Gov has shown it is willing to tackle it with legislation if necessary. Vote SNP May 2017

Geeo@ 11.35: “Unionist smell early ‘defeat’ of SNP, only to be outvoted/outsmarted by the SNP and Greens, how fuckin great would THAT be !!”

That would be a laugh. I hope Patrick Harvie considers very hard before lining up with the forces of darkness, for the sake of his party’s reputation. If the fans themselves are overwhelmingly in favour of the Act, it should not be repealed; it can be improved by amendment. Of course, the Yoons aren’t too keen on democracy, are they?

Did you know, geeo,that you wrote a most unusual sentence, one containing the words “Kelly” and “think”? 😛

O/T. This just in on Pravdasound4: 11000 BBC recipes (the Greatest Recipes in The World, obviously) are to be removed from the BBC on-line service. An incredible archive of Briddish Food, apparently, with 15 recipes for Spag Bol. No, I don’t understand that bit either.

The subsea cable was to link to Europe. Russian Gas supplies Europe. There is a Gas pioe line under the Baltic Sea linking Russian Gas to Germany. It already supplies other countries in proximity. That was before Osbourne tried to destroy Scotland Oil & Gas sector with a 60/80% tax when prices had fallen 75%. CCS was considered for the NS which could have restored EU gas emission. The North Sea is the best place to do it, in the whole of Europe. It could have brought in many fees. The Westminster rejected permission for a CCSProject at Longannet. Longannet is now closed down. The U.K. Give has stopped coal production in Britain. There is an abundance of coal in the UK. Westminster has stopped the opportunity for Scotland to gain EU renewable Grants by it’s indecision.

The UK Gov is building a white elephant nuclear power station by the sea at Hinkley Point. It is a total waste and disaster waiting to happen. It will be over budget and over time and will cost £Billions. The waste will be exported to other countries. It would have been better to invest in electric cars. Will solar continue.

A tidal barrage at the Humber would have cost £9Billion and produced clean, cheap electricity. It was cancelled because of cost. They have has Tidal barrages in France since the 1960’s. Just as Scotland has had Hydro electricity. Still very successful water/electricity producing schemes. Some
communities were disrupted.

The zombified relic of the old RFC is still lingering in the background. That’s the legal entity that owes HMRC taxes, notably the ones White deliberately chose not to pay, is not the one fielding football teams under the Rangers brand. Arguably as it becomes clear that the EBT’s aren’t going to mature, if there was ever any doubt, the players who received loans based on them now owe HMRC any income tax due.

The point about the same/new club dispute is that Lord Nimo never claimed they were legally the same but rather resorted to the phrase “in common parlance”. That latter however covers the argument that if you really wanted to count cups and titles then as far as the OldCo goes you’d have to add in any won by the other teams fielded by it. Probably far more than 55. So you’re talking about the team in that case.

Really that’s nonsense. If you had said leaders in UK and Scotland found the sectarian bigotry that existed (at one time widespread in England too) useful, that would have made some sense. Don’t pretend we didn’t really have a problem – our own part of the left overs of centuries of religious strife in Europe.

On the subject of canned soups – don’t waste your money on the soup from Baxters and Heinz.

Lidl have a great range at 35p or 45p a can and in particular I would mention their Cream of Tomato which is difficult to distinguish from the Heinz product and at 35p is about 1/3 of the price. also the Cream of Chicken is delicious.

I don’t think you GOT my point Robert. I’m very aware of the educational system in Scotland, not ignorant as you say, have visited (and worked in) many schools over time and was involved in elaborating the 5-14 Curriculum.

If the Greens have carried out any research that shows evidence that the behaviour of fans have changed once they own their club.

Then they should do the decent thing and publish it.
While Hearts is owned by its fans, as far as I am aware from media reports it doesn’t appear to have prevented offensive behaviour taking place in the ground.

As far as I am concerned fans should be going to a match to watch the skills of the players and the quality of the football on display.

There is no place in our society for sectarian bigotry or any other form of offensive behaviour.
All it does is shame our game and country.

Which is why I want to see the offensive Behaviour (Football) act amended and strengthened to stamp it out.

By far the worst catalysts toward violence and hatred are religion and tribal politics… and worst of all the combination of both around a single issue. You’ll need a time machine to eradicate these from Scotland or anywhere else they exist. Well intentioned and popular as this act clearly is, it’s a sticking plaster on a gaping wound that’s by no means unique to Glasgow or Scotland. It is, however the reason I and others I know left to raise our families elsewhere.

“Look at the Muslims in England, demonstrating each summer, to kill the infidels, burn the police and telling our Queen to go to hell. Now I find that offensive but they have the right to chant what they like.”

No, they don’t. They have the right to chant what they like UP TO THE POINT WHERE IT INCITES VIOLENCE OR CRIME, at which point they’re liable to get nicked like anyone else. It’s not illegal to sing “The Billy Boys”. It’s illegal to sing it IN A CONTEXT WHERE IT COULD PROVOKE PUBLIC DISORDER. Try to get your head round that, it’s fairly important.

BDTT
Baxters Royal Game was always my favourite treat, but Cock-a-leekie was good too.

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